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'•^i. 


CLEAR    WATERS 

TROUTING  DAYS  AND  TROUTING  WAYS 

IN    WALES,    THE    WEST    COUNTRY,   AND 

THE  SCOTTISH   BORDERLAND 

BY 

A.    G.    BRADLEY 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN    COMPANY 

1914 


loOS 
3  7^c 


CONTENTS 


I 

PACK 

THE  MICROBE i 


II 
THE  WELSH  DEE 44 

III 
SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES       ....         77 

IV 
THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS   ....       100 

V 
THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 135 


VI 

THE  ELAN  LAKES  AND  WILD  SOUTH  WALES        173 

V 


vi  CLEAR  WATERS 

VII 

FAOX 

THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 216 

VIII 
THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY  ....       245 

IX 
IN  AND  AROUND  NORTHUMBERLAND      .        .       290 

X 
THE  WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE     .         .332 


LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS 


ON  THE  COQUET 

CARROG  BRIDGE  ON  THE  DEE 

THE  WILTSHIRE  AVON  AT  AMESBURY 

KENNET  AT  MARLBOROUGH  . 

TAL-Y-LLYN  LAKE  AND  CHURCH 

LUGG  BRIDGE,  KINGSLAND 

PEN-Y-GAREG  LAKE,  RHAYADER 

GARA  BRIDGE  ON  THE  AVON 

THE  HEAD  OF  ULLSWATER      . 

FROM  THE  HEAD  OF  ULLSWATER 

ON  THE  COQUET  NEAR  ROTHBURY 

THE  WHITEADDER  AT  HUTTON  CASTLE'i 

THE  WHITEADDER   NEAR   ITS  JUNCTION 
WITH  TWEED 


Frontispiece 
Facing  page    46 
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340 


Vll 


CLEAR    WATERS 

I 

THE  MICROBE  ; 

WHAT  is  it  and  whence  comes  it  ? 
A  different  insect  I  think  from  that 
which  sends  the  young  idea  to  horse  or  gun, 
to  bat  or  ball,  constantly  as  both  are  found  in  the  same 
small  body.  I  have  myself  had  most  of  these  other 
complaints  as  violently  as  is  common.  Childhood 
and  youth  are  by  instinct  gregarious.  But  this  angling 
microbe  sends  even  gregarious  youth  away  into  soli- 
tudes, where  there  is  no  company  but  his  own,  no 
shouting,  no  competition,  no  applause,  no  glory.  If 
it  were  the  unsociable,  the  studious,  the  delicate  who 
usually  fell  a  victim  there  would  be  nothing  in  it 
But  as  a  matter  of  fact  this  is  not  very  often  the  case. 
It  is  much  more  frequently  the  other  sort  who  in  the 
mysterious  magnetism  of  the  stream  find  a  something 
that  is  not  measured  to  any  extent  worth  mentioning 
by  success,  rivalry,  or  applause,  but  nevertheless  holds 
them  tight.  There  are  thousands  of  well-to-do  men 
in  this  country  who  are  neither  good  performers,  nor 
really  care  much  about  it,  yet  carry  a  gun  regularly. 
It  is  one  of  the  correct  things  to  do,  and,  what  is  more, 
fits  in  with  or  sometimes  assists  their  social  life,  and  is 

A  I 


CLEAR  WATERS 

nowadays  made  very,  very  easy.     The  novus  homo  in 
the  country  takes  it  up  violently  and  is  thoroughly 
pleased  with  himself  for  so  doing,  which  latter  attitude 
when  you  come  to  think  of  it  is  rather  absurd.     Or 
another  sort  of  man  was  automatically  entered  to  it 
as  a  boy  with  all  the  machinery  to  hand,  but  without 
any  particular  initiative  on  his  own  part.     Still  more, 
the  individuals  who  hunt  because  they  really  like  it 
for  itself,  no  knowledgeable  person  would  ever  venture 
to  assert  are  anything  but  a  minority,  while    those 
who  really  understand  the  craft  are  a  still  smaller  one. 
The  accessories  of  the  chase  include  at  least  half  a  dozen 
distinct  attractions,  some  harmless,  others  vulnerable 
and  irresistible  to  the  cynic.     Even  salmon-fishing  is 
not  free  from  suspicion,  as  it  is  one  of  the  sports  ac- 
counted worthy  of    a   millionaire ;    while   a  lady  of 
fashion,  who  with  or  without  the  gillie's  help  has  some 
measure  of  success,  stands  more  than  a  good  chance 
of  figuring  with  her  biggest  fish  in  the  society  or  illus- 
trated papers,  some  of  which  seem  almost  to  exist  for 
such  purposes.     But  trouting  profits  no  one  who  is 
not  fond  of  it,  and  is,  I  think,  really  free  from  all  the 
meretricious  enthusiasm  and  make-believe  that  hangs 
on  to  the  skirts  of  other  sports  in  Great  Britain  alone, 
I  fancy,  of  all  countries.     Not  that  this  is  to  be  de- 
precated for  a  moment.     The  good  no  doubt  far  out- 
weighs the  humbug,  though  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
both,  and  it  is  about  trouting  and  its  environment 
that  I  propose  to  gossip  in  this  little  book. 

How  the  microbe  came  to  be  within  me  I  cannot 
imagine.  My  paternal  forbears  with  all  their  rami- 
fications were  scholars  or  theologians  or  both.     On  the 

2 


THE  MICROBE 

other  side  they  were  sportsmen  almost  to  a  man,  but 
East  Anglians  to  the  core,  which  in  those  days,  when 
all  but  dukes  and  the  like  found  their  sport  at  home, 
meant  that  not  one  of  them  probably  had  ever  even 
seen  a  trout.  As  for  me  the  Kennet  to  be  sure  washed 
the  far  end  of  our  precincts  for  about  two  hundred 
yards.  The  Kennet,  however,  was  not  a  prattling 
brook  beside  which  an  urchin  would  disport  himself 
and  make  acquaintance  with  troutlings,  but  a  rather 
deep  and  slow  river  where  big  trout  lay  hidden  from 
all  but  the  expert  eye,  and  for  most  of  the  summer 
were  buried  beneath  a  coat  of  flowering  weeds  upon 
which  the  moorhens  and  dabchicks  ran  about  as  on 
a  meadow.  No  rod  of  any  kind  was  ever  seen  waving 
there,  nor  was  there  anything  about  it  to  attract  an 
infant  or  indeed  any  one  but  a  fairly  skilful  fisherman, 
had  there  been  any  such,  to  its  rather  awkward  banks. 
So  I  have  always  held  it  to  be  a  curious  psychological 
mystery  that  I,  a  small  boy,  absorbed  preternaturally 
for  my  years  in  bats  and  balls  of  all  kinds,  who  had 
never  consciously  heard  the  word  trout  uttered, 
should  have  been  fascinated  by  a  ridiculous  cheap 
print  which  hung  over  the  fireplace  in  a  certain  gar- 
dener's lodge.  It  was  an  absurd  thing.  I  can  recall 
it  most  vividly,  though  I  could  not  have  set  my  infant 
eyes  upon  it  half  a  dozen  times.  It  represented  two 
slim  gentlemen  in  tall  hats,  blue  cut-away  coats  and 
tight  pantaloons  standing  on  a  grassy  bank,  with  a 
long  wavy  rod  resting  upon  the  shoulder  of  each.  On 
the  grass  was  a  creel,  and  beside  it  two  fish  adorned 
with  lurid  red  spots.  In  the  foreground  was  a  dash 
of  sky-blue  water  and  a  bed  of  reeds  bending  in  the 

3 


CLEAR  WATERS 

wind.  It  was  entitled  '  Trout-fishing,'  and  while  the 
nurse  gossiped  with  the  gardener's  wife  my  childish 
gaze  was  always  riveted  upon  it,  though  the  little 
room  was  hung  with  many  other  startling  works  of  art. 
It  kindled  within  me  a  strange  and  pleasurable  feeling 
that  I  can  still  lucidly  recall,  though  I  could  not  define 
or  analyse  it  to  save  my  life.  It  was  quite  obviously 
the  first  stir  of  the  microbe — caught  perhaps  from 
some  playmate  who  had  fishing  ancestors !  With  the 
nursery  period  the  few  occasions  for  gazing  on  this 
masterpiece  passed  away  as  did  the  very  word  trout 
from  my  ken,  and  indeed  my  school  holidays  were 
generally  spent  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  the  most  trout-less 
bit  of  England. 

And  in  the  meantime  the  microbe  lay  dormant. 
The  Kennet  below  our  grounds — though  I  realised 
nothing  of  this  till  a  later  day,  was  netted  by  a  miller 
at  the  bottom  of  the  town,  who,  under  a  charter  of, 
I  beUeve,  Richard  ii.,  possessed  and  still  possesses 
the  curious  archaic  privilege  of  dragging  his  net  once 
a  year  for  a  long  distance,  irrespective  of  any  riparian 
owners'  rights.  But  of  this  I  knew  nothing  then. 
A  few  years  later  I  knew  all  about  it  and  had  more 
than  one  wordy  passage  with  the  miller's  man  who, 
from  the  withy  bed  which  fronted  our  meadow,  had 
the  impudence  to  dispute  my  right  to  throw  a  fly 
from  our  own  ground.  It  was  before  the  days  of  dry- 
fly  fishing,  here  at  any  rate,  and  I  really  think  that  this 
upper  bit  of  the  Kennet,  though  quite  a  sizeable 
stream,  had  never  before  had  a  fly  of  any  sort  cast 
upon  it.  There  were  no  local  fishermen.  It  had 
become  a  sort  of  stodgy  tradition  that  the  river  was 

4 


THE  MICROBE 

sacred  to  the  net  of  this  unspeakable  miller,  who  sent 
big  fat  trout  round  to  his  patrons  and  friends ;  for  at 
least  there  was  nothing  sordid  in  his  otherwise,  as  I 
then  regarded  it,  disreputable  proceeding.  When 
first  the  real  significance  of  that  two  hundred  yards, 
of  which  one  bank  was  ours,  burst  upon  my  awakened 
senses,  I  was  considerably  chilled  by  our  venerable 
rector,  who  had  once  been  a  fly-fisherman,  assuring 
me  that  Kennet  trout  would  not  rise  to  the  fly  above 
a  certain  point  two  miles  down  stream,  and  this  I 
think  was  the  local  tradition.  An  utter  myth  of 
course,  incredible  to  the  modern  understanding,  and 
as  I  very  soon  satisfied  myself  by  the  simplest  of 
methods  and  a  mere  wet  fly,  absurd  in  itself.  But  I  am 
pretty  sure  that  no  fly  at  that  date  had  ever  been  thrown 
above  Marlborough.  What  between  the  miller  and 
his  mediaeval  rights  and  the  marquis,  whose  benignant 
but  still  awesome  sway  then  rested  on  all  that  country, 
I  don't  think  it  had  ever  entered  into  anybody's  head, 
even  if  they  had  a  stretch  of  bank  from  which  to  cast 
a  line  upon  that  sacred  stream.  So  it  was  with  a 
shout  of  amazement  and  indignation  that  the  miller's 
man  first  beheld  me  exercising  what  I  felt  sure  were 
my  lawful  rights,  from  our  own  ground,  on  waters 
sacred  in  his  unbelieving  and  woolly  mind  to  his 
master  and  the  marquis.  I  let  him  shout,  and  when 
he  had  finished  assured  him  with  the  arrogance  of 
youth  and  quite  justifiable  confidence,  that  he  and  his 
master  and  his  beastly  net  could  go  to  the  devil,  and 
that  if  Richard  ii.  had  been  unsportsmanlike  enough 
to  perpetrate  an  annual  poaching  raid  on  our  field  and 
garden  among  others  it  was  an  outrage  of  which  his 

5 


CLEAR  WATERS 

master  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  take  advantage.  As 
for  the  marquis,  it  was  a  private  matter  entirely 
between  that  great  man  and  myself. 

The  miller's  henchman  having  listened  with  dumb 
amazement  to  this  outburst,  departed  muttering  I 
should  hear  more  of  this.  I  never  did,  not  likely,  save 
occasionally  from  that  misguided  rustic  himself. 
Looking  back  on  it  I  think  it  would  have  been  a  very 
nice  point  of  law  between  the  marquis  and  my  in- 
significant and  immature  self,  had  that  great  man, 
who  possessed  some  miles  of  fine  fishing  down  lower 
upon  which  in  after  years  I  had  many  a  pleasant  day, 
troubled  his  head  about  a  bow  shot's  length  of  water 
where  the  fish  were  not  supposed  to  rise  to  the  fly,  and 
that  an  outsider  could  legally  net.  For  our  place  was 
on  a  thirty-years'  leasehold  under  the  said  marquis, 
and  I  used  to  compose  imaginary  letters  in  bed  in 
defence  of  my  practices,  which  in  regard  to  an  ancient 
superstition  were  regarded  by  some  as  a  trifle  audacious. 
My  compositions  ran  something  like  this,  though 
possibly  not  so  stylish  ! 

My  dear  Marquis, — The  miller  is  a  common  enemy 
though  a  licensed  freebooter.  This  bit  of  water  is 
obviously  useless  to  you  since  you  could  not  fish  it 
without  coming  into  our  private  grounds,  which  would 
be  impossible  without  permission.  Reciprocity  of 
treatment  of  course  would  be  the  only  possible  terms 
of  admission.  A  mere  dog-in-the-manger  policy,  on 
the  other  hand,  even  within  your  Lordship's  rights 
on  a  long  leasehold  demesne  so  small  that  the  sporting 
privileges  could  hardly  have  been  considered,  would 
6 


THE  MICROBE 

merely  deliver  more  fish  into  the  shameless  net  of  the 
common  enemy,  the  miller.  Ergo,  every  fish  I  kill 
with  a  fly,  besides  being  a  great  and  worthy  pleasure 
to  myself,  saves  it  from  an  ignominious  end  in  the 
miller's  net.' 

Yet,  in  spite  of  this  crushing  logic,  there  were  still 
people  obsessed  of  a  time-honoured  unsupported 
superstition  who  regarded  me  as  making  rather  free 
when  for  two  or  three  years,  till  we  left  the  neighbour- 
hood, I  treated  the  water  without  molestation  as  my 
preserve.  And  this  to  the  oft-times  contentment 
of  the  household ;  for  Kennet  trout,  unlike  some 
others  from  neighbouring  chalk  streams,  are  pink  and 
firm  and  worthy  of  a  dinner-course,  not  merely  to 
serve  as  a  breakfast  side-dish.  In  a  breeze  even  in  our 
still  water  they  rose  fairly  to  a  wet  fly. 

I  even  suspected  my  father,  who  was  on  excellent 
terms  with  the  marquis,  of  being  not  without  secret 
misgivings. 

But  then,  though  he  knew  a  great  deal  about  many 
more  useful  and  important  things,  he  knew  nothing 
at  all  about  trout  or  riparian  rights.  A  letter  from 
him  to  the  great  man  would  no  doubt  have  settled  the 
question  in  my  favour.  But  this  I  forbore  to  suggest, 
for  there  was  an  agent,  and  even  marquises  can  do 
nothing  without  a  word  at  least  with  their  factotum, 
and  I  suspected  this  one  of  encouraging  the  pre- 
historic traditions  that  a  know-nothing  community 
had  dumbly  acquiesced  in.  An  agent  naturally  dis- 
likes the  concession  of  small  privileges,  particularly 
to  a  boy.     Even  then  I  knew  enough  to  picture  him 

7 


CLEAR  WATERS 

brushing  aside,  plausibly  and  respectfully,  his  employer's 
good  intentions,  and  suggesting  all  manner  of  possi- 
bilities and  precedents  which  such  a  trifle  might  give 
rise  to,  and  finally  undertaking  to  reUeve  the  great  man 
of  appearing  churlish  by  answering  the  letter  himself. 
This  he  would  do  most  courteously  without  touching 
on  the  question  of  rights,  hinting  at  imaginary  diffi- 
culties with  imaginary  people  and  pleading  expediency, 
which  would  have  settled  the  case  against  me.  In  other 
words  the  great  superstition  would  have  triumphed. 

However,  this  stretch  of  bank,  just  about  the  time 
I  ceased  to  tread  it,  passed  by  purchase  out  of  its  noble 
owner's  hands,  and  never  I  believe  since,  in  forty 
years,  have  the  three  or  four  successive  occupants  of 
our  old  abiding-place  reaHsed  that  they  have  as  good 
a  little  bit  of  trout-holding  water — for  till  June,  when 
the  weeds  gripped  it,  it  was  always  full  though  a  little 
awkward  to  fish — as  there  is  on  the  uppermost  Kennet. 
Nay,  worse,  one  of  them  not  long  ago  deliberately 
set  to  work  to  fence  himself  and  his  successors  off  from 
all  access  to  the  bank  by  a  thick  planting  of  willows, 
and  King  Richard's  miller  now,  I  presume,  reigns 
supreme  and  gets  every  fish.  Indeed,  I  myself  long 
since  ceased  to  regard  that  archaic  right  of  his  with 
the  frenzy  of  untutored  youth,  but  on  the  contrary  as 
a  picturesque  and  interesting  survival.  I  long  ago 
made  friends  with  the  successors  of  my  ancient  enemy, 
and  not  seldom  as  an  occasional  visitor  to  the  old  place 
have  accepted  the  hospitaHty  of  his  little  garden 
behind  the  mill-house  on  the  island,  and  cast  my  fly 
from  it  on  the  wide  surging  pool  beneath  the  dam 
where  pounders  and  even  two-pounders  may  be  ex- 
8 


THE  MICROBE 

pected  to  consider  it  favourably.  There  are  always 
two  or  three  sockdolagers  of  twice  that  weight 
occupying  the  choice  positions  just  under  the  fall, 
whence  they  regard  one  at  quite  close  range  with 
contemptuous  eye.  A  pleasant  leafy  spot  it  is,  too,  on 
a  June  evening,  when  from  the  Norman  church  tower 
the  curfew-bell  is  tolling ;  so  near  and  yet  so  aloof 
from  the  dear  old  town,  whose  muffled  hum  floats  over 
the  mellow  riverside  gardens  and  mingles  with  the 
roar  of  the  dam,  the  rumble  of  the  mill-wheel,  and 
the  whispering  leaves  of  the  tall  poplars  overhead. 

But  all  this  is  anticipating,  for  we  had  not  got  much 
farther  chronologically  than  the  first  wriggle  of  the 
microbe    before    the    masterpiece   in    the   gardener's 
lodge.     It  was  some  three  years  before  I  felt  it  stir 
again,   and   this   fell   about   at   Twyford,   that   most 
venerable  probably  of  all  preparatory  schools,  which 
stands,  as  every  Wykhamist  knows,  in  tolerable  pro- 
pinquity to  the  Itchen.     This  classic  stream,  however, 
had  been  nothing  to  me  nor  to  any  of  us  except  as 
the  scene  of  an  occasional  bathe.     The  contests  of 
the   playground   absorbed   our   outdoor  Hfe.     But   I 
well  remember  one  June  half  holiday  near  the  end  of 
my  time,  how  while  engaged  in  a  cricket-match  I 
espied  one  of  the  masters  pass  along  the  end  of  the 
playground  with  a  long  whippy  rod  over  his  shoulder, 
a  creel  on  his  back,  and  accompanied  by  a  young  friend 
of  my  own.     A  voice  from  a  fieldsman  somewhere 
called  out,  *  Hullo,  there  's  old  Brown  going  mayfly- 
fishing.'     Then  all  at  once  I   experienced  the  same 
unaccountable   attraction  and  queer,  wistful  longing 
that   the   gardener's   print,   never   thought   of  since, 

9 


CLEAR  WATERS 

had  been  wont  to  excite.  For  some  quite  inexplicable 
reason  I  would  almost  have  sacrificed  my  chance  of 
the  first  eleven,  for  which  I  was  at  the  moment  strug- 
gling, to  have  been  in  my  young  friend's  place  and  to 
have  followed  that  burly  figure  with  the  rod  and 
creel  to  the  riverside,  though  I  had  but  the  vaguest 
notion  of  his  procedure  when  he  got  there.  Beyond 
a  doubt  it  was  the  microbe  stirring  again.  Then 
there  was  nothing  more  till  a  year  or  so  later,  when  I 
ran  into  a  hotbed  of  the  disease  and  the  complaint 
broke  out. 

For,  to  dispense  with  metaphor,  I  found  myself 
domiciled  in  a  snug  rectory  upon  the  slopes  of  Exmoor. 
It  was  a  cold  February.  I  remember  the  snow  lay 
deep  and  frozen  on  the  moor,  and  the  stream,  of  a 
type  different  from  any  I  had  ever  seen,  gurgled  like 
a  black  twisting  thread  through  the  white  vale  below 
the  house.  But  in  due  course  March  suns  and  balmy 
winds  unthawed  the  rigid  earth,  the  snow  vanished, 
the  valley  became  greener  than  any  valley  I  had  ever 
seen  in  early  spring,  and  there  was  everywhere  a 
strange  and  delicious  murmur  of  bubbling  and  tink- 
ling waters.  A  mountain  rivulet  fashioned  to  a 
mimic  cataract  plashed  noisily  beneath  my  bedroom 
window  night  and  day.  From  the  Wiltshire  Downs 
and  the  Isle  of  Wight  to  Exmoor  was  almost  a  change 
of  continents  to  a  child.  From  the  typical  south  to 
the  most  extreme  type  of  the  west,  to  an  observant 
impressionable  youngster,  was  almost  like  crossing  the 
Atlantic  to  a  grown-up.  The  Exmoor  rectory,  how- 
ever, soon  became  a  paradise.  Early  regrets  for  the 
gregarious  joys  of  school  Hfe  were  forgotten.    The  in- 

10 


THE  MICROBE 

mates  of  the  house  began  to  talk  about  trout-fishing  as 
if  it  were  the  normal  occupation  of  everybody's  leisure 
hours  in  the  spring-time.  Unsuspected  rods  came  out 
of  hidden  lairs,  and  when  on  an  early  day  a  youth 
of  some  sixteen  summers  returned  at  luncheon  time 
from  the  river  and  laid  half  a  dozen  quarter-pounders 
on  a  plate  on  the  hall  table,  the  insect  once  again,  this 
time  seriously,  made  demonstrations,  and  I  was  soon 
in  a  high  fever.  This  was  the  opportunity  no  doubt 
that  I  had  unconsciously  been  waiting  for.  The  mere 
sight  of  these  trout,  the  first  I  had  ever  beheld,  was 
enough ;  and  the  flies  too  had,  during  this  first  ac- 
quaintance with  them,  an  extraordinary  fascination. 
Often  in  later  life  have  I  striven  to  catch,  and  with 
but  a  faint  gleam  of  success,  the  glamour  which  in- 
vested the  first  handling  of  those  palmers,  black  and 
red,  and  these  blue-uprights  of  such  ancient  fame 
and  usage  in  the  west  country. 

But  a  rod  !  Now  almost  anything  in  reason,  even 
a  pony,  had  horseflesh  not  been  abundant  on  the  spot, 
might  have  been  included  in  my  outfit  for  this  far 
country,  which  had  been  recommended  as  a  cure  for 
some  childish  weakness.  But  a  fly-rod  was  outside 
the  vision  of  my  home  circle,  for  the  world,  be  it 
remembered,  has  changed  much  since  those  days. 
The  parent  in  Essex,  Northamptonshire,  or  London 
is  almost  as  likely  nowadays  to  be  a  fly-fisher  of  sorts 
as  a  home-bred  west-country  parson.  If  he  is  more- 
over a  fond  parent  too,  he  thinks  nothing  of  devoting 
the  expanded  modern  Easter  holidays,  sensibly  and 
skilfully  contrived  no  doubt  by  angling  pedagogues, 
without  regard  to  shifting  church   festivals,  to  the 

II 


CLEAR  WATERS 

education  of  his  hopeful  in  the  gentle  art.  He  takes 
him  to  far  counties,  north  or  west,  and  superintends  his 
elementary  endeavours.  Sometimes  I  have  fancied,  on 
encountering  such  parties,  that  the  hopeful  is  rather 
bored.  But  never  mind  so  long  as  he  is  not  put  off  : 
the  experience  wHl  be  of  infinite  comfort  and  use  to 
him  in  after  life.  The  parents  of  former  days,  though 
urgent  in  the  matter  of  ponies,  for  riding  was  then  a 
virtual  necessity,  never  dreamed  of  this  other  business  ; 
we  had  to  look  after  the  superfluities  ourselves.  Per- 
haps the  rector,  himself  an  all-round  sportsman, 
suggested  a  probationary  period  before  I  communi- 
cated to  my  people  the  uncanny  demand  for  a  fly-rod. 
We  had  only  three  posts  a  week  too,  and  were  eleven 
miles  from  anywhere.  Nor  could  he  guess  that  a 
shrimp  of  a  lad  from  the  dry  counties,  an  '  up-country- 
man  '  term  of  contempt  among  the  local  rustics,  was 
likely  to  fall  a  hopeless  victim  to  the  soHtary  fascinations 
of  an  Exmoor  stream. 

So  for  the  nonce  an  expedient  was  devised  in 
the  upper  and  nether  portions  of  two  broken  rods 
spliced  together  with  string.  This  was  my  first 
weapon,  and  it  was  about  as  handy  as  a  shaven  bean- 
stick,  while  a  reel  was  regarded  for  the  present  as  a 
superfluity.  My  pocket-money  was  equal  to  com- 
pleting the  outfit,  while  old  Pulman  of  Totnes,  a  name 
long  forgotten,  tackle  purveyor  to  the  household, 
supplied  me  with  two  casts  (collars  they  called,  and 
still  call,  them  down  there)  and  a  dozen  flies  of  the 
before-mentioned  patterns  for  their  equivalent  in 
postage  stamps.  Our  casts  were  coarser,  and  our  flies, 
I  think,  larger,  than  those  used  nowadays  in  that,  or 

12 


THE  MICROBE 

most  countries.  But  revolutions  have  taken  place  in 
fishing  as  in  the  greater  things  of  life  since  those  dim 
and  easy-going  days.  Nevertheless  I  should  still,  and 
do  still,  when  the  occasion  arises,  always  mount  the 
same  old  pattern  of  red  palmer  with  or  without  gold 
twist  as  a  tail  fly  in  clear  water  up-stream  fishing  in 
every  stream  known  to  me  in  Devonshire ;  further 
encouraged  if  such  were  needed,  by  the  fact  that  my 
contemporaries  in  that  country  hold  stoutly  that 
nothing  has  ever  been  contrived  worthy  to  displace 
it.  Strange  insects  galore  have  been  dressed  since 
those  days.  Rods,  reels,  lines  have  all  been  developed 
almost  out  of  recognition.  But  the  old  Devon 
palmer  still,  I  think,  defies  time  and  change  in  its 
own  country,  while  as  for  the  blue-upright,  even  if  the 
wings  have  in  a  measure  been  clipped  off,  who  would 
venture  to  mount  an  April  cast  at  any  rate  without 
one.  After  all,  the  same  old  naturals,  though  wonderful 
names  and  classifications  have  been  devised  for  them 
by  moderns  sweltering  in  the  weird  vocabulary  of  dry- 
fly  purism,  flit  and  spin  through  their  brief  and  happy 
day  along  the  same  old  stream.  Down  in  the  hidden 
waters  between  the  alders,  the  rowans,  and  the  oaks, 
the  whir  of  a  feverish  world  has  passed  unheeded, 
and  here  at  any  rate  time  has  stood  still,  and  the  old, 
old  melodies  are  played. 

I  plied  my  glorified  bean-stick  with  unremitting 
ardour  and  with  a  novel  delight,  that  has  never  yet 
palled,  in  the  ever-shifting  surface  and  the  strange 
charms  of  a  hill-born  stream  purling  amid  banks  that 
were  part  wood,  part  meadow,  and  part  heath.  I 
had  never  been  so  happy  in  my  brief  and  unclouded 

13 


CLEAR  WATERS 

existence  as  in  the  momentary  expectation  of  killing 
my  first  fish,  except  in  the  accomplishment  of  that 
great  design.  We  had  some  four  miles  of  water  all  to 
ourselves  on  this  river,  and  my  companions,  older  and 
comparatively  trout-wise,  were  too  intent  on  their 
own  performances  to  bother  much  about  me.  So  I 
thrashed  the  stream  assiduously  by  the  light  of  nature 
through  all  the  leisure  hours  of  dayHght  with  my  un- 
handy weapon  for  a  full  three  weeks,  though  cheered 
and  properly  startled  by  an  occasional  rise  (ah  !  those 
first  flashes  of  a  yellow  side  above  the  ripple)  before 
the  great  moment  came,  and  when  it  did  come  it  was 
rather  extra  glorious. 

Now,  no  knowledgeable  angler  will  need  to  be  told 
that  our  trout  in  such  a  stream  would  average  about 
six  to  the  pound.  It  had  been  dispiriting  to  return 
empty-handed  every  day  to  a  circle  in  which  your 
status,  it  might  almost  be  said,  for  the  warmer  six 
months  depended  upon  your  baskets.  To  say  that 
I  can  remember  the  spot  out  of  which  that  first  fish 
was  violently  dragged  would  be  ridiculously  super- 
fluous, since  at  this  moment,  after  nearly  half  a  century, 
I  can  follow  down  in  fancy  that  four  miles  of  bewitch- 
ing water,  ed4y  by  eddy,  stickle  by  stickle,  and  pool 
by  pool.  I  don't  know  how  that  fish  took  my  fly,  or 
why  I  became  suddenly  aware  that  he  was  engaged 
in  such  an  artless  enterprise,  for  there  was  no  sign 
above  water.  But  I  did,  which  proves  that  I  had 
made  some  progress.  I  have  more  than  once  in  later 
years  seen  a  small  boy  engaged  with  his  first  trout 
and  how  he  lets  it  run  about  the  water  shouting  in  the 
meanwhile  to  the  attendant  parent  as  to  what  he  was 


THE  MICROBE 

to  do  next.  I  had  caught  many  before  I  could 
exercise  such  composure,  if  such  it  can  be  called. 
The  first  hundred  at  least  of  mine  came  flying  out 
willy-nilly.  This  one  was  too  big  to  fly,  but  with  the 
sub-consciousness  that  one  was  on  I  ran  backwards 
in  a  sort  of  delirium,  and  a  third-of-a-pounder  was 
whirled  sideways  on  to  the  meadow,  when  I  instantly 
fell  upon  him,  and  having  disengaged  the  hook  went 
straight  home  in  a  rapture.  It  was  almost  the  largest 
that  had  yet  been  caught  that  early  spring,  and  the 
triumph  would  not  brook  delay. 

I  held  up  my  head  after  that,  and  for  some  reason 
or  other  very  seldom  came  home  again  quite  empty- 
handed.  The  spell  was  broken.  A  rod  moreover 
was  purchased  from  Bowden  of  North  Street,  Exeter, 
a  maker  patronised  by  the  household  for  a  specialty  of 
his,  consisting  of  two  whole  cane  joints  and  a  lance- 
wood  top.  I  was  now  admitted  as  a  brother  fisher- 
man, and  by  degrees  worthy  to  join  in  the  long  dis- 
cussions at  night  over  the  respective  merits  of  this 
pool  or  that  stickle  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  It  may  seem 
ridiculous  at  such  an  age,  but  I  cannot  help  what  it 
may  seem,  and  there  are  plenty  even  of  skilful  fisher- 
men who  do  not  know  what  such  a  thing  means  to  their 
dying  day.  But  the  charm  of  that  country,  as  would 
have  any  similar  country  enjoyed  with  such  freedom 
through  the  medium  in  the  first  instance  of  its  streams, 
entered  into  my  very  soul.  I  must  no  doubt  have  been 
rather  abnormally  susceptible  to  such  influences,  and 
Exmoor  with  its  quiet  yet  robust  life,  always  in  the 
presence  of  what  to  one's  youthful  imagination  were 
rivers  leading  into  mysterious,  unexplored  fairy-lands, 

15 


CLEAR  WATERS 

or  into  great  moors  stretching  to  infinity,  exercised 
an  extraordinary  and  lifelong  influence.  Wild 
horses  would  not  have  extracted  an  admission  of  such 
day-dreams  even  had  I  been  capable  of  giving  expres- 
sion to  this  vague  sense  of  continual  aesthetic  enjoy- 
ment. I  was  frequently  raUied  for  absent-mindedness, 
a  new  vice  I  think,  and  not  being  then  much  enamoured 
of  the  literary  tasks  which  imprisoned  us  for  a  portion 
of  most  days,  had  no  excuse  for  such  mental  eccen- 
tricities. I  was  constantly  being  offered  the  pro- 
verbial copper  for  my  meditations.  Had  these  been 
capable  of  articulate  shape  and  the  offers  been  accepted, 
my  seniors  would,  I  think,  very  often  have  been  pro- 
perly astonished.  It  was  a  wonderful  existence  in  its 
way  for  a  boy  of  a  sympathetic  temperament.  There 
were  no  lessons  in  natural  history,  such  would  possibly 
have  been  regarded  as  a  bore.  But  simply  an  atmo- 
sphere in  which  you  were  supposed  to  know  every 
ordinary  fact  connected  with  earth,  sky,  or  water,  and 
you  sucked  it  all  in  automatically,  out  of  doors.  If  a 
master  at  school,  for  instance,  during  a  Sunday  walk, 
had  pointed  out  the  difference  between  a  chaffinch 
and  a  bullfinch,  it  might  have  been  thought  a  little 
tiresome  and  very  likely  forgotten.  But  here  was 
a  circle  where  to  confuse  a  sea-gull  with  a  curlew, 
or  a  pigeon  with  a  hawk  on  the  remote  horizon  was 
accounted  a  disgrace,  and  to  mistake  a  jack  for  a  full 
snipe  simply  wrote  you  down  a  hopeless  ass  or  a  Cockney. 
This  was  admirable.  All  these  and  a  thousand  kindred 
things  were  taken  as  a  matter  of  course,  than  which 
there  is  no  better  school.  They  were  not  hoHday 
interludes,  but  continued  for  three  hundred  days 
i6 


THE  MICROBE 

of  the  year  more  or  less  throughout  the  changing 
seasons.  Topography  and  all  it  signified  became 
in  this  free,  wide-ranging  life  something  real.  From 
the  moor  just  above,  where  in  those  days  the  black 
game  still  bred,  we  could  see  nearly  all  over  Devon- 
shire and  into  north  Cornwall,  together  with  the 
whole  of  the  Bristol  Channel  and  the  long  curving 
coast  of  Wales  with  its  shadowy,  mysterious,  back- 
lying  mountains.  The  habits  of  observation  were 
established  without  injunctions  or  precepts,  and  they 
soon  extended  themselves  from  the  things  that  were 
near  to  the  things  that  were  far  away.  The  maps  of 
infancy  began  to  shape  themselves  into  real  things 
of  infinite  interest,  into  hills,  moors,  valleys,  and 
seas. 

The  greatest  joy  of  all,  however,  were  the  occasional 
days  upon  the  Barle.  Our  river  washed  the  skirts 
only  of  the  moor,  but  the  Barle  cleft  its  silent  heart. 
It  was  a  real  solitary  moorland  stream,  from  where  we 
tapped  it  near  its  head  four  miles  away  in  the  gloomy 
depths  of  Pinkerry  pool,  right  down  to  Simmons- 
bath,  peaty  and  amber  -  coloured,  running  from 
rocky  shallows  into  deep  dark  pools  which  seemed 
to  my  fevered  unsophisticated  fancy  the  potential 
haunt  of  whales.  In  reality  they  were  the  stamping- 
ground  of  three-ouncers  and  quarter-pounders  and 
a  legion  of  sprats  upon  whom  a  venerable  fly-dis- 
daining Triton  or  two,  made  raids  when  they  felt 
hungry. 

Sometimes  these  big  ones  made  a  mistake,  but  it 
was  not  generally  the  proffered  fly  of  the  boy  that 
thus  deceived  them.  Occasionally  one  of  our  party 
B  17 


CLEAR  WATERS 

at  the  close  of  a  long  day,  when  the  wagonette  picked 
us  up  at  Simmonsbathj  had  a  three-quarter-pounder 
in  his  basket  to  be  handled  admiringly  by  envious 
hands,  for  some  measure  of  rivalry  was  inevitable.  It 
is  these  wild  days  on  the  Barle,  enjoyed  at  intervals 
for  several  years,  that  come  back  to  me  most  readily, 
and  which  most  certainly  had  the  strongest  fascination 
— dark  days  when  the  clouds  raced  over  the  bare  hills, 
and  the  wind  whistled  in  the  rushes  and  bog  grasses, 
and  scurried  with  driving  showers  up  the  still  tails  of 
the  pools.  There  were  never  any  strange  fishermen  in 
those  days  on  the  upper  Barle.  It  hadn't  been  dis- 
covered. There  was,  moreover,  a  certain  eeriness  to  the 
very  young  idea  in  those  long  stormy  days  in  the  wilds, 
and  an  almost  fearful  joy  in  following  down  the  grim 
brown  waters  through  what,  at  that  tender  age,  seemed 
quite  awe-inspiring  solitudes.  I  weU  remember,  too, 
the  thrill  with  which  I  first  heard  the  wild  breeding 
cries  of  the  curlews  that  came  in  spring  to  nest  among 
those  lonely  hills. 

Our  own  river  below  the  rectory  was  a  joyous 
silvery  stream,  overhung  with  oak,  ash,  or  alder, 
fringed  with  steep  green  irrigated  meadows  or  flat 
narrow  strips  of  rushy  pasture  crunched  by  red  bullocks 
in  summer,  and  in  hard  winter  the  frequent  haunt 
of  snipe.  One  discovered,  too,  even  thus  early  under 
this  system — -no,  not  system,  for  its  natural  matter-of- 
course  procedure  was  its  high  merit — how  much 
superstition  had  to  do  with  the  assured  beliefs  of  con- 
ventional life.  One  learned  that  it  was  quite  natural 
and  harmless  to  walk  about  in  the  water  even  in 
March  and  April,  if  a  fly  had  to  be  released,  or  it  was 
i8 


THE  MICROBE 

convenient  to  shift  your  bank,  though  a  long  drive 
home  might  be  impending.  One  learned  also  that 
to  be  rained  upon  heavily  for  many  hours,  beyond 
the  passing  discomfort  which  was  not  to  be  recognised, 
was  of  no  consequence  whatever.  And  I  see  by  the 
official  report  of  the  British  rainfall  that  the  annual 
deposit  at  this  particular  spot  is  sixty  inches,  nearly 
thrice  that  of  the  region  from  which  I  write  !  One 
learned  to  regard  the  neck  comforter,  so  deplorably 
popular  with  doting  mothers  and  anxious  guardians 
generally,  as  an  unthinkable  effeminacy,  and  an  over- 
coat as  only  permissible  in  a  winter  railway  journey 
or  a  long  drive  in  the  snow.  And  the  north-western 
slope  of  Exmoor  was  as  cold  as  it  was  wet.  I  don't 
know  what  our  fond  mammas  would  have  said  if 
they  had  suspected  the  deliberate  recklessness  of  our 
code;  but  our  guardians  seemed  to  be  possessed  of  some 
heaven-sent  inspiration  of  how  a  boy  should  be  dealt 
with.  Nobody  ever  had  a  cold.  I  suppose  there  was 
a  doctor  some  dozen  miles  away,  but  I  have  no  recol- 
lection of  his  existence.  There  was  incessant  shooting, 
too,  in  winter,  but  the  weather  was  not  ever,  I  think, 
taken  into  the  smallest  account  unless  we  were  abso- 
lutely snowed  up,  which  sometimes  happened  on 
Exmoor.  I  was  supposed  to  be  delicate  when  I  went 
there.  It  is  quite  certain  that  the  cure  was  more 
effective  than  any  doctors.  By  the  close  of  the  first 
fishing  season  I  was  tolerably  handy  with  small  trout, 
and  a  curious  thing  happened  in  the  summer  holidays 
which  requires  a  short  preamble. 

As  my  people,  according  to  their  usual  habit,  were 
to  spend  it  in  Switzerland,  I  was  dispatched  together 

19 


CLEAR  WATERS 

with  a  pony  to  some  friends  of  ours  in  Shropshire, 
where  from  childish  recollections  I  anticipated  and 
assuredly  found  a  second  paradise.  The  prospect 
was  faintly  clouded,  to  be  sure,  by  that  of  a  holiday 
tutor,  whose  instructions  I  was  to  share  with  the 
remaining  son  of  the  house,  then  passing  from  Marl- 
borough to  Oxford,  and  consequently  far  my  senior. 
Like  most  of  his  race  he  was  a  mighty  Nimrod  even 
then  well  on  in  the  making,  and  long  afterwards  un- 
happily killed  in  the  hunting-field.  He  was  very 
kind  to  me,  but  hated  fishing.  So,  except  for  occasional 
rides  when  my  pony  and  I  were  urged  to  jumping 
adventures  of  a  kind  unprecedented  in  my  modest 
experience,  I  saw  little  of  him  except  at  meals  and 
during  the  tutorial  interlude,  which  was  happily  limited 
to  a  single  hour  after  breakfast.  During  this  weary 
procedure  I  remember  he  always  nursed  a  fox-terrier, 
and  seemed  to  me  to  make  it  bark  by  some  subtle 
action  whenever  he  was  involved  in  a  difficult  passage. 
For  myself,  I  think  I  looked  out  of  the  window  most 
of  the  time,  to  where  the  waters  in  the  park  shone  in- 
vitingly in  the  morning  sun.  Our  tutor  being  only 
an  undergraduate  was  naturally  not  a  disciplinarian, 
though  he  became  afterwards  a  distinguished  Indian 
official. 

For  this,  I  should  say,  was  a  famous,  nay,  a  historic 
place,  though  now  passed  from  its  ancient  owners. 
My  hosts  being  near  relatives  of  the  latter,  I  had  the 
free  range  of  everything  out  of  doors  that  would 
make  glad  the  heart  of  youth.  But  at  this  moment 
many  sheets  of  water  of  various  sizes  with  their  enor- 
mous possibilities  held  my  fancy  fast.  I  had  left 
20 


THE  MICROBE 

Exmoor  with  a  wholly  new  outlook  on  many  things. 
Above  all,  the  streams  and  rivers  that  in  traversing 
England  the  train  strode  in  its  course,  became  objects 
of  life,  interest,  and  speculation.  Here  were  pools 
and  lakes  almost  at  the  door.  I  knew  nothing  of 
bottom-fishing,  but  that  very  fact  enhanced  the 
mystery  and  the  adventure.  None  of  that  mild  float- 
fishing  with  nurse  or  governess,  so  often  engaged  in 
by  juveniles,  had  ever  come  my  way.  Now,  however, 
I  lost  not  an  hour.  By  the  advice  of  a  sympathetic 
butler  who  rummaged  out  some  tackle,  and  with  a  tin 
of  worms,  I  commenced  operations  in  a  round  pool, 
some  hundred  yards  in  diameter  and  known  in  local 
geography  as  the  marlpit.  This  resulted  in  my  first 
introduction  to  the  roach,  whose  novelty  of  appearance 
after  the  Exmoor  trout  gave  some  zest  to  its  capture. 
But  a  day  or  two  later  I  found  myself  in  Shrewsbury, 
with  a  view,  I  think,  to  buying  tackle,  in  company 
with  my  very  much  looked-up-to  friend,  and  we 
turned  into  what  was  then  a  celebrated  tackle-shop. 
Its  proprietor,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  something  of  a 
notability,  and  as  an  expert  taxidermist  rather  closely 
associated  with  the  great  house  in  the  park,  which 
contained  a  fine  private  museum  of  stuffed  birds  and 
beasts.  The  old  gentleman  suggested  we  should 
lunch  with  him,  which  we  did  very  handsomely  in  a 
room  above  the  shop,  on  a  portion  of  a  beautiful 
salmon  he  had  killed  in  the  Wye  the  day  before,  after 
a  hard  fight,  which  he  described  at  length.  So  I 
was  getting  on  !  My  companion  rallying  me  at  table 
anent  my  devotion  to  the  roach  in  the  marlpit, 
Mr.  S remarked,  '  Why  don't  you  catch  some  of 

21 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  pike  there  ;  I  'm  pretty  sure  it  has  been  stocked. 
I  '11  give  you  some  gimp  hooks  when  we  go  down- 
stairs and  show  you  how  to  fix  a  live  roach  on,  and  then 
you  can  try  them.' 

He  was  as  good  as  his  word,  and  next  day  I  pro- 
ceeded to  carry  out  his  instructions.  To  my  delight 
in  a  very  short  time  away  went  the  roach,  and  care- 
fully observing  the  time  limit  for  gorging  impressed 
upon  me,  I  eventually  felt  the  little  Exmoor  fly-rod 
bending  before  the  rather  sullen  excursions  hither 
and  thither  of  what  seemed  to  my  callow  experi- 
ence a  rather  unenterprising  whale.  It  was  really 
only  a  two  pound  jack  (which  I  estimated  at  twice 
that  weight).  But  two  pounds  was  two  pounds  on 
Exmoor — very  much  so  !  I  had  by  this  time  acquired 
habits  of  restraint  and  did  not  try  to  fling  the  pike 
over  my  head,  but  our  tutor,  who  had  come  to  witness 
the  experiment  and  was  not  a  fisherman,  got  greatly 
excited.  We  hauled  it  out  successfully,  and  to 
shorten  the  story  we  (for  my  preceptor  raised  a  rod 
and  joined  in  the  fray)  repeated  the  experiment 
again  and  again  till  within  the  next  four  or  five  days 
we  had  grassed  about  fourteen  small  pike.  After 
this  there  was  a  lull,  of  so  persistent  a  nature,  that 
we  turned  our  attention  to  wider  fields  of  enterprise. 
Some  days  later,  however,  I  was  sitting  alone  at 
the  same  pond,  fishing  for  roach  with  a  view  to 
bait  and  another  attempt  at  the  pike,  when  a  voice 
behind  me  called  out,  '  Hullo,  young  'un,  what 
sport  ?  ' 

Turning  round  I  beheld  a  smart-whiskered  gentle- 
man whom  I  knew  to  be  the  son  and  heir  of  the  great 

22 


THE  MICROBE 

man  who  was  here  lord  of  all.  He  sat  down  on  the 
bank  beside  me,  mighty  Nimrod  and  celebrated  shot 
though  he  was,  and  discoursed  learnedly  on  the  best 
baits  for  roach.  I  soon  let  him  know,  however,  that 
roach  were  not  the  limit  of  my  aspirations  or  indeed 
of  my  trophies,  and,  in  short,  that  I  was  only  in  pursuit 
of  them  for  pike  bait,  following  up  with  an  account 
of  the  recent  triumphs.  '  Pike  !  '  said  he.  '  You 
don't  mean  it !  How  many  have  you  taken  out  of 
here  ?  ' 

'  Fourteen,'  said  I  without  a  thought  that  so 
wonderful  an  achievement  would  be  accounted  as 
aught  but  a  merit. 

'  The  devil  you  have  !  and  that  I  believe  is  about 
the  number  I  put  in  here  last  Easter  to  stock  the  pond. 
Hang  it !  That  is  the  precise  number  !  There  are 
none  left !  ' 

I  felt  like  taking  an  immediate  leap  into  the  pond 
and  remaining  there. 

After  a  truly  painful  silence  he  began,  to  my  infinite 
relief,  to  laugh  loudly,  swore  I  was  a  dangerous  chap 
to  be  about,  that  he  would  tell  his  uncle  (my  host)  to 
send  me  home  or  I  should  be  cleaning  out  the  big  lake 
next,  and  so  on. 

Oddly  enough  I  never  caught  but  one  more  pike 
in  my  whole  life,  and  that  was  the  very  next  year,  and 
it  weighed  almost  as  much  as  the  whole  fourteen 
from  the  marlpit.  On  this  occasion  I  was  staying 
with  friends  in  south  Devon,  and  we  drove  over  one 
day  to  Slapton  Ley,  that  curious  freshwater  mere  only 
divided  from  the  sea  by  a  strip  of  beach.  My  kind 
host,   almost  as  an  afterthought   and  purely  for  my 

23 


CLEAR  WATERS 

benefit,  hired  a  boat  with  man  and  tackle  from  the 

hotel,  and  we,  he  and  I,  went  a-fishing.     There  were 

two  rods,  one  for  small  fry,  perch  and  suchlike,  the 

other  for  pike  with  live  bait  and  tackle.     My  friend 

not  being  an  angler  took  charge  of  the  former.     I,  as 

an  angling  maniac  and  on  the  strength  of  my  recent 

Shropshire  performance,  took  charge  of  the  pike-rod. 

In  due  course  I  had  a  run,  and  when  the  time  for 

striking  came  I  thought  I  had  hold  of  the  bottom  of 

the  lake.     But  it  wasn't ;    it  was  an  enormous  pike, 

and  in  about  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  with  the  help  of  the 

boatman,  we  had  it  on  board,  and  it  weighed  eighteen 

pounds.     Curiously  enough  it  was   the  largest   that 

had  been  killed  in  that  public  water  for  many  years. 

If  it  had  been  January  instead  of  August  it  would  have 

been  much  heavier.     My  kind  friend  had  it  mounted 

for  me  by  old  Pulman  of  Totnes,  and  I  have  it  still. 

The  veteran  taxidermist  and  fly-tier  was  so  tickled  at 

the  notion  of  so  juvenile  an  angler  being  responsible 

for  so  large  a  fish  that  throughout  the  next  year  or 

two  when  he  forwarded  my  shilling  or  half-crown's 

worth  of  flies  he  used  to  insert  after  my  name  on  the 

envelope   *  The  Great  Pike   Catcher ! '     It  was  the 

last  pike  of  my  life.     I  rested  on  my  laurels.     As  a 

matter  of  fact  it  was  a  branch  of  the  sport  that  never 

came  much  in  my  way  nor  made  any  particular  appeal 

to  me.     That  was  in  truth  a  memorable  year  to  me. 

For  it  had  so  happened  that  the  very  month  before 

I  had  by  a  very  similar  accident  achieved  an  even 

greater  triumph,  which  must  assuredly  be  recounted 

as  this  is  a  chapter  of  childish  things. 

By  the  summer  of  this  my  second  season  on  Exmoor 
H 


THE  MICROBE 

I  had  become  pretty  handy  with  a  trout-rod  for  a  boy 
of  fourteen,  and  could  kill  two  or  three  dozen  fish  on 
a  good  day,  treat  a  half-pounder  in  the  water  with 
respect,  and  spin  a  Devon  minnow,  when  the  state 
of  the  river  demanded  that  alternative,  reasonably 
well.  A  worm  in  our  circle  was  for  some  reason 
absolutely  taboo.  I  think  the  prejudice  against  it 
was,  and  still  is,  pretty  strong  in  Devonshire.  But 
as  previously  recorded,  I  had  learned  a  great  many 
other  things  too,  particularly  a  good  deal  of  physical 
geography,  with  trout,  incredible  though  the  fact 
may  seem,  as  a  sort  of  basis  for  it.  I  had  already 
divided  England  into  two  distinct  portions,  one 
worthy  of  desire,  the  other  of  no  account  at  all.  I  had 
always  in  my  mind  an  as  yet  imperfectly  defined  line 
which  ran  down  from  Yorkshire  slantingwise  to 
south  Devon.  West  of  this  line  was  mentally  tabu- 
lated a  good  country,  one  of  hills  and  moors  and  rapid 
trouting  streams.  East  of  it  was  a  dull  stodgy  region 
of  tame  outlook  and  sluggish  rivers,  mainly  given  over 
to  coarse  fish.  Wales  and  the  north,  particularly  the 
former,  as  I  had  looked  constantly  upon  its  distant 
mountains,  both  from  Exmoor  and  from  Shropshire, 
was  to  me  a  land  of  dreams  and  future  trouting  possi- 
bilities strongly  tinged  with  romance.  I  have  that 
feeling  about  England  still,  with  certain  modifications, 
and  couldn't  shake  it  off  if  I  tried,  though  I  know 
nearly  the  whole  of  both  sides  of  that  line  and  can  draw 
the  last  with  greater  precision.  The  sentiment  of 
locality  or  atmosphere  was  extraordinarily  active  in 
my  youthful  breast  even  then,  and  at  seventeen  or 
eighteen  it  had  grown  stronger  still.     It  was  Catholic 

25 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  that  it  was  aroused  by  any  sample  of  the  one  type  of 
country  and  as  indiscriminately  repelled  by  the  other. 
Just  before  the  summer  holidays,  after  which  I  was 
going  to  a  public  school,  I  heard  to  my  delight  that 
instead   of   the   usual   move    to    Switzerland   of   my 
parents  we  were  going  en  famille  to  North  Wales. 
Visions  of  real  mountains,  of  lakes  and  streams,  visions 
partly    romantic    and    partly    trouty    rose    gloriously 
before  me.     I  fairly  shivered  as  it  occurred  to  me  that 
Norfolk  or  the  Isle  of  Wight  might  for  strong  reasons 
have  been  the  alternative.     Marvellous  to  relate,  too, 
came  a  maternal  intimation  that  my  father  had  some 
idea  of  taking  up  trout-fishing  and  that  I  was  at  once 
to  choose  him   a   rod.     It   appears   that   my  boyish 
ardour  had  proved  infectious  in  a  most  unsuspected 
quarter.     So  an  order  was  dispatched  to  Bowden  of 
Exeter,  and  when  the  samples  came  a  committee  of 
three,  the  rector  in  the  chair,  myself,  and  another, 
undertook  the  selection  of  a  rod  for  a  middle-aged 
academic  dignitary  who  had  never  even  seen  a  fly 
thrown.     I  hope  I  may  be  forgiven  for  an  ulterior 
interest  in  that  rod.     It  was  impossible  to  resist  the 
conviction  that  it  would  in  no  long  time  be  mine, 
which  indeed  proved  correct  and  I  used  it  for  years. 
Indeed  the  rector  I  am  sure  privately  shared  these 
unworthy  anticipations,  for  he  winked  quite  obviously 
as  he  gave  his  casting  vote  for  a  serviceable  little  rod 
'  very  like  my  own.' 

Llanfairfechan,  a  small  place  in  those  days,  proved 

to  be  our  prospective  headquarters,  and  as  we  sped 

along  the  Holyhead  hne  towards  it  I  watched  the  hiUs 

growing  into  real  mountains  with  profound  exaltation. 

26 


THE  MICROBE 

Now  Llanfairfechan  is  very  handy  to  mountain  wilds, 
and  I  lost  no  time  in  searching  the  map  for  brooks 
and  tarns,  of  which  there  are  several  obscure  ones 
within  reach,  and  without  more  a-do  proceeded  to 
range  the  waste,  rod  in  hand.  It  was  familiar  enough 
going  after  Exmoor  with  a  difference  only  in  the  awe- 
inspiring  mountains  of  the  Snowdon  range  which 
bounded  the  near  horizon  and  affected  me  no  little. 
My  boyish  efforts  on  the  then  attenuated  Welsh 
brooks  and  unruffled  tarns  of  a  rather  dry  July  were 
naturally  not  productive.  I  did  not  yet  realise  that 
trout  required  some  freshening  up  of  the  waters  to 
bestir  themselves  in  that  most  torpid  month,  or  that 
a  breeze  was  indispensable  for  lake  fishing.  A  showery 
afternoon  in  the  Aber  stream  below  the  waterfall,  I 
remember,  provided  the  only  gleam  of  success  save  the 
great  achievement  to  which  all  this  is  leading  up. 
For  it  so  happened  that  by  good  luck,  though  at  the 
moment  I  did  not  look  at  it  this  way,  I  was  persuaded 
to  go  into  Bangor  and  have  an  offending  tooth  out. 
The  Holyhead  line,  it  may  be  remembered,  just  before 
reaching  that  ancient  little  cathedral  town,  crosses 
a  viaduct  under  which  the  Ogwen  river  may  be  seen 
rushing  swiftly  down  into  the  bordering  woods  of 
Penrhyn  castle.  It  is  a  glimpse  to  make  any  fisher- 
man's mouth  water.  It  was  altogether  too  much  for 
me  in  spite  of  a  toothache  at  that  fevered  period, 
when  the  mystery  of  unsatisfied  experiences  was  over- 
mastering. 

When  I  returned  to  Llanfairfechan  minus  a  tooth 
and  ready  for  anything,  the  Ogwen  river  was  the 
burden  of  my  theme.     My  father  had  not  even  taken 

27 


CLEAR  WATERS 

his  rod  out  of  its  case  except  on  the  lawn  before 
leaving  home,  when  his  only  remark  was  that  it  re- 
minded him  of  a  whip,  for  he  was  very  fond  of  driving. 
Indeed,  my  efforts  at  great  expenditure  of  time  and 
muscle  had  not  been  encouraging  to  his  maiden 
ones.  Moreover  in  such  a  country,  in  fine  weather, 
other  attractions  had  naturally  been  strong.  But  he 
thoroughly  sympathised  with  the  gentle  art  though 
he  continued  to  leave  it  severely  alone,  and  permanently 
as  it  so  proved.  In  a  moment  of  inspiration,  however, 
it  was  remembered  that  my  godfather  was  a  relative 
of  the  owner  of  this  glorious  glimpse  of  wood  and 
water,  so  a  letter  was  dispatched  forthwith  to  that 
kindly  soul,  and  in  due  course  a  missive  arrived  at  break- 
fast addressed  to  me  from  Penrhyn  castle  presenting  its 
distinguished  owner's  compHments  and  permission  to 
fish  for  two  days  in  the  Penrhyn  water  for  trout  (under- 
lined). '  He  thinks  you  are  a  grown-up,'  said  one  of 
my  small  sisters,  surveying  the  address  on  the  impor- 
tant-looking envelope,  a  just  remark  no  doubt.  '  It  is 
quite  obvious,'  said  my  father  drily,  *  that  your  exploit 

upon  the  marlpit  at  H has  got  about  the  world.' 

For  myself  I  had  not  read  the  Field  diligently  for  two 
years  for  nothing,  and  moreover  salmon  ran  up  our 
Exmoor  stream  in  late  autumn  to  spawn.  So  I  ex- 
plained that  this  merely  precluded  me  from  fishing 
for  salmon.  *  And  why  shouldn't  he  catch  salmon  as 
well  as  trout,'  said  my  mother  in  a  rather  aggrieved 
tone  of  voice — an  ingenuous  remark,  for  which  her 
East  AngHan  breeding  was,  in  those  days,  a  sufficient 
excuse. 

A  friend  of  ours  from  Bangor  happened  to  turn  up 
28 


THE  MICROBE 

that  day,  and  hearing  of  my  contemplated  exploit 
kindly  offered  to  put  me  up  for  the  night  as  being 
nearer  the  scene  of  action.  In  the  meantime,  to  my 
infinite  joy  and  the  disgust  no  doubt  of  Llanfairfechan 
generally,  a  heavy  rain  fell  and  the  local  brook,  hitherto 
a  bed  of  large  boulders,  with  an  almost  imperceptible 
trickle  between  them,  came  down  in  spate.  I  judged 
my  time  as  it  proved  to  a  nicety,  and  a  day  or  two 
afterwards  took  an  early  train  to  Bangor  and  found 
my  way,  I  forget  how,  to  the  stretch  below  the  railway 
viaduct.  The  river  was  still  a  thought  high  but  drop- 
ping down  into  a  nice  colour.  This  was  much  the 
biggest  job  I  had  yet  undertaken,  even  without  the 
unimaginable  adventure  which  it  brought  about. 
Indeed,  I  had  a  rather  disconcerting  sensation  of  not 
being  equal  to  it.  The  river  was  much  too  wide  to 
cover  from  the  bank,  and  at  that  moment  too  deep  and 
rapid  to  wade  ;  I  felt  my  little  Exmoor  rod  to  be 
distinctly  inadequate.  But  I  could  throw  a  pretty 
good  line  for  my  age,  and  succeeded  in  capturing  a  few 
rather  modest  trout.  Then  came  a  moment  of  great 
excitement,  and  I  got  into  a  sea  trout  whose  sides 
glittered  gloriously  as  he  leapt  again  and  again  out  of 
the  water.  It  was  only  a  small  one,  about  three- 
quarters  of  a  pound,  but  a  big  fish  to  me  when  I  got 
him  successfully  out  on  to  a  gravelly  beach.  It  was 
not  very  long  after  this  quite  exhilarating  event  when 
my  tail  fly,  a  Devon  red  palmer  with  gilt  twist,  as  it 
was  sweeping  round  from  somewhere  near  midstream, 
was  seized,  and  I  experienced  something  of  a  shock. 
The  rod  point  went  down,  my  line,  of  which  I  had 
only  thirty  yards,  began  to  whiz  from  the  reel,  and  I 

29 


CLEAR  WATERS 

found  myself  chasing  a  leviathan  down  the  banks  at 
full  speed.  Mercifully  the  rush  was  short,  for  just 
below  in  a  big  pool  matters  came  to  a  stop.  I  have 
no  clear  idea  how  the  fish  and  I  kept  on  terms  as  the 
former  bored  about  the  pool,  but  I  had  a  pretty  fair 
notion  of  what  gut  would  stand  and  had  enough  line 
for  immediate  purposes. 

At  that  ever-blessed  moment,  however,  I  heard  an 
exclamation,  and  the  keeper,  as  it  proved  to  be,  ap- 
peared beside  me.  The  fish  had  not  jumped,  but  I 
did  not  need  him  to  tell  me  it  was  a  salmon,  though 
I  needed  him  desperately  to  help  me  struggle  with  it. 
If  he  had  approached  in  just  wrath  at  seeing  an  urchin 
in  round  jackets  fishing  his  best  salmon  water  at  the 
very  moment  of  its  perfection,  he  bridled  his  choler 
and  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  fray,  shouting  in- 
structions in  Welsh-English  as  the  fish  bored  about 
the  pool.  Just  below  us  was  a  single  large  alder-tree 
projecting  from  the  bank.  If  the  fish  took  another 
dart  down  stream,  we,  or  at  least  I,  was  absolutely 
done,  for  the  water  beneath  the  tree  was  unwadeable. 
This  is  just  however  what  the  salmon  proceeded  very 
shortly  to  do,  whereupon  the  Welshman  snatched  the 
rod  out  of  my  hand,  and  slid  into  the  river  up  to  his 
waist.  Holding  the  little  rod  in  his  left  hand,  and 
grasping  the  brush  round  the  alder  trunk  with  his  right 
he  swung  himself  round  somehow  and  scrambled  out  on 
to  the  bank  beyond  and  after  the  fish  again,  who  came 
to  a  halt  in  another  pool  just  below.  Here  he  returned 
me  the  rod,  and  as  there  were  no  more  rushes  the 
battle  eventually  ended  in  our  favour,  the  keeper 
tailing  the  fish  on  a  bit  of  gravel  beach.  It  was  a 
30 


THE  MICROBE 

beauty,  fresh  from  the  sea  and  of  just  six  pounds 
weight.  As  it  stretched  its  shapely  length  upon  the 
grass  the  earth  for  me  swam  round  in  wild  career,  and 
I  thanked  heaven  for  my  godfather  and  my  once 
accursed  tooth.  The  keeper  genuinely  pleased,  I 
think,  with  so  adroitly  saving  the  fish,  and  possibly 
melted  by  the  momentary  distinction  I  had  achieved, 
forbore  to  press  the  mystery  of  my  presence  in  this 
sacred  spot.  So  it  fell  to  me  to  take  the  initiative. 
I  produced  my  letter  and  was  quite  ready  to  go  before 
the  magistrates  or  even  to  prison,  if  necessary,  for 
exceeding  the  conditions  contained  therein.  How- 
ever, the  keeper  only  laughed.  And  when  my  pro- 
spective host  from  Bangor  appeared  upon  the  amazing 
scene,  which  he  did  very  shortly  as  pre-arranged, 
and  gave  the  worthy  Welshman  five  shillings,  it  was 
a  fitting  crown  to  the  great  moment  so  far  of  my  brief 
Hfe. 

The  pike  raid  of  the  preceding  year  faded  into 
insignificance  beside  this  glorious  day.  The  eighteen- 
pound  pike  of  the  following  month,  though  more 
curious  as  a  mere  incident,  did  not  exalt  me  to  nearly 
the  same  extent.  The  events  of  the  afternoon  are 
not  worthy  of  remembrance ;  I  looked  for  a  salmon 
every  throw,  but  found  only  a  few  small  trout.  As 
I  walked  that  summer  evening,  however,  through  the 
streets  of  Bangor  carrying  the  fish  conspicuously  dis- 
played, I  was  probably  the  proudest  wight  that  ever 
trod  its  pavements.  My  host  had  kindly  asked  two 
or  three  boy  friends  to  his  bachelor  dinner-table  that 
night  when  we  ate  the  fish.  They  were  older  and  I 
dare  say  wiser  than  I,  but  they  seemed  to  me  on  that 

31 


CLEAR  WATERS 

occasion  mere  children.  A  heavy  rain  that  night  and 
rising  water  robbed  me  of  my  second  day.  But  I 
could  bear  even  that  now.  I  should  have  preferred 
perhaps  to  have  taken  the  salmon  back  to  Llanfair- 
fechan  instead  of  only  the  sea  trout  and  the  minor 
fry,  as  it  would  have  made  an  impression  on  a  family 
innocent  of  these  things,  such  as  a  mere  narrative 
supported  by  figures  in  avoirdupois  could  not  do. 
My  father  realised  something  at  any  rate  of  its  import. 
But  my  mother  who,  though  she  ate  a  great  many  of 
my  trout  in  after  years,  never  grasped  anything  asso- 
ciated with  the  catching  of  them,  merely  remarked 
that  she  was  glad  I  had  caught  one  salmon  at  least,  as 
she  thought  the  clause  about  the  trout  in  my  letter 
of  permission  just  a  little  shabby  ! 

Yet  upon  the  whole  I  think  the  dinner  in  Bangor 
gave  greater  satisfaction  than  would  even  the  ex- 
hibition of  the  salmon  in  the  domestic  circles.  For 
the  other  boy  guests  who  had  been  some  time  at  a 
public  school  were  no  doubt  prepared  to  be  patron- 
ising. My  host,  moreover,  decided  that  we  would  say 
nothing  to  them  about  the  keeper's  assistance.  And 
I  dare  say  I  comported  myself  as  if  a  salmon  was  an 
everyday  occurrence. 

School  life  in  those  days,  when  there  was  often  no 
Easter  vacation  at  all,  or  a  very  short  one,  and  the 
summer  hoHdays  began  at  the  end  of  June  and  closed 
in  mid  August,  was  dead  against  trout-fishing.  The 
west  country  streams  had  generally  run  to  nothing,  and 
the  trout  in  any  case  waxed  indifferent,  while  as  for 
the  Kennet,  it  presented  a  solid  surface  from  bank 
to  bank  of  flowering  weeds,  upon  which  you  could 
32 


THE  MICROBE 

almost  walk.  One  memorable  summer,  however,  I 
was  voted  old  enough  to  appreciate  Switzerland.  Old 
enough  indeed !  My  respected  seniors  little  guessed 
what  hills  and  mountains  had  been  to  me  this  long 
time. 

We  were  a  party  of  eight,  six  grown-ups,  an  Oxford 
freshman,  and  myself,  aged  seventeen.  I  had  ascer- 
tained that  there  were  trout  in  Switzerland  and  the 
rod  went  along — the  one  purchased  for  my  father, 
which  had  now,  as  foretold,  been  definitely  handed 
over.  It  got  me  into  trouble  at  the  very  first  start 
off.  For  after  a  day  or  two  in  Paris,  then  in  the  hey- 
day of  the  second  empire,  we  were  starting  for  Switzer- 
land, and  for  some  specific  purpose  or  other  I  arrived 
at  the  Paris  station  rather  before  the  rest  of  the  party. 
To  make  sure  no  doubt  that  if  all  of  our  baggage  went 
wrong,  a  possibility  that  to  a  young  and  callow  Briton 
seemed  imminent,  my  rod  should  not,  I  stuck  to  it, 
and  was  walking  up  and  down  the  platform  with  it  in 
my  hand,  waiting  for  the  others.  Now  it  so  happened 
that  the  screw  of  the  spike  at  the  end  of  the  butt 
had  rusted  in,  and  not  being  able  to  withdraw  it,  this, 
to  the  French  eye,  apparently  formidable  spear-head 
protruded  beyond  the  case.  I  was  presently  tapped 
on  the  shoulder  by  a  gentleman  in  uniform  who, 
pointing  to  my  Exmoor  rod,  asked  me  (I  presume) 
why  I  was  carrying  about  a  deadly  weapon.  My 
French  was  that  of  the  regulation  two  hours  a  week, 
so  contemptuously  regarded  at  a  public  school,  and 
not  calculated  to  oil  the  wheels  of  foreign  travel. 

So  I  could  only  look  helplessly  round  for  some  of  our 
party  to  come  and  ease  the  situation.  In  the  mean- 
c  33 


CLEAR  WATERS 

time  I  was  disarmed  or  I  would  have  unfastened  the 
case  and  displayed  the  ridiculously  inoffensive  nature 
of  the  suspected  thing.  Then  another  official  in  the 
uniform  apparently  of  a  field-marshal  was  called  into 
animated  council,  during  which  the  two  examined  the 
spear  and  felt  its  point. 

I  ought  perhaps  to  say  in  possible  extenuation  of 
these  strange  proceedings  that  attempts  on  the  Hfe 
of  the  emperor  were  just  then  much  on  the  official 
mind.  I  was  then  beckoned  to  follow  the  two  gor- 
geous ones,  and  as  they  had  my  precious  rod,  there 
was  no  alternative.  I  was  conducted  the  whole  length 
of  the  platform,  after  the  manner,  so  it  struck  me,  of 
a  conspirator  caught  in  the  very  act,  and  then  into 
a  room  where  a  third  field-marshal  was  writing  at 
a  desk.  Then  a  tremendous  discussion  took  place, 
during  which  I  was  again  accosted,  and  of  course  to 
no  purpose  whatever.  I  tried  to  get  hold  of  the  rod 
to  undo  its  wrappings  and  expose  the  absurdity  of  the 
business,  but  this  perhaps  was  regarded  as  the  action 
of  a  desperado,  and  I  was  so  disconcerted  that  even  the 
elementary  French  that  had  survived  from  the  gover- 
ness period  refused  to  come.  At  last,  however,  a 
briUiant  inspiration  seized  me,  and  I  ejaculated  very 
loud  '  Mon  pere  et  ma  mere  ici — dans  la  station.''  '  Ha 
ha ! '  said  the  gorgeous  ones  taking  me  by  the  shoulder. 
Another  of  the  field-marshals  bearing  the  deadly  weapon 
a-head,  they  marched  me  back  along  the  platform, 
where  to  my  reUef  I  espied  our  party  just  arrived. 
They  were  a  good  deal  startled  to  see  me  apparently 
under  arrest,  and  when  I  explained  to  them  the  cause 
the  ladies  went  into  such  peals  of  laughter  that  my 

34 


THE  MICROBE 

escort  began  to  look  more  truculent  than  ever,  and 
I  trembled  lest  in  some  way  I  should  become  the 
innocent  victim  of  their  unseemly  mirth.  My  father 
however  succeeded  in  maintaining  a  straight  face, 
and  with  the  utmost  politeness  informed  them,  so  I 
gathered,  that  I  was  an  innocent  British  schoolboy  and 
that  the  instrument  I  was  carrying  was  only  a  fishing- 
rod.  This  was  accepted  with  salutes  all  round,  and 
thus  was  I  snatched  from  the  jaws  of  the  Bastille  and 
restored  to  the  bosom  of  my  prodigiously  amused 
family.  How  little  my  respected  sire  guessed  when 
he  inspired  the  purchase  of  that  rod,  and  how  little 
we  recked  when  we  selected  it  on  the  lawn  of  the 
Exmoor  rectory,  that  it  would  ever  be  in  the  hands 
of  French  officials  as  a  suspected  instrument  for  the 
murder  of  the  French  emperor  !  Seriously,  however, 
I  have  not  to  this  day  the  remotest  notion  what  these 
people  were  after. 

We  had  scarcely  touched  Swiss  soil  before  my  pis- 
catorial ardour  nearly  landed  the  Oxonian  and  myself 
in  an  awkward  and  ludicrous  situation.  My  friend, 
who  is  now,  by  the  way,  a  most  distinguished  dean, 
though  he  hailed  from  a  trouting  country,  was  not 
much  given  over  to  the  pursuit  of  fish.  But  we  spent 
a  day  and  night  at  Constance,  and  adventuring  the 
shore  of  the  lake  at  evening  I  hauled  out  a  good-sized 
fish,  of  the  carp  tribe,  which  acted  so  powerfully  on 
my  companion's  mind  that  we  agreed  to  get  up  early 
the  next  morning  and  repeat  the  experiment  at  the 
same  spot  about  a  mile  from  the  town.  By  a  mere 
accident  I  have  my  fishing  journal  for  this  year,  and 
the  strange  fish  it  recorded  as  an  '  arle,'  weight  one 

35 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  a  quarter  pounds,  and  the  bait  cheese  !  We  were 
abjured  and  implored  to  be  back  for  breakfast  and  an 
early  start  for  the  Engadine  via  Chur,  and  threatened 
in  case  of  failure  to  be  abandoned  to  our  fate  as  helpless 
British  boys,  in  a  strange  land,  innocent  of  any  speech 
but  our  own.  For  I  do  not  think  I  am  doing  my 
friend  the  dean  an  injustice  in  saying  that  he  was  then 
scarcely  more  effective  than  I  in  this  particular,  though 
he  was  a  scholar  of  his  college. 

We  carried  our  scheme  out  only  too  thoroughly. 
What  possessed  us  I  cannot  think.  Whether  the  big 
fish  demonstrated  in  tantaUsing  fashion — for  we  caught 
none — neither  of  us  at  this  day  can  recall,  or  whether 
we  jointly  suffered  from  mental  aberration  as  to  the 
flight  of  time.  But  it  is  quite  certain  that  the  first 
thing  which  awoke  us  to  our  situation  was  the  rumble 
of  a  train  along  the  lake  shore  just  behind  us  and  frantic 
shouts  and  waving  of  handkerchiefs  from  a  carriage 
window.  Then  we  knew  we  were  lost.  We  had  no 
money  to  speak  of  in  our  pockets,  nor  did  I  know 
precisely  whither  our  party  were  bound.  Possibly 
my  companion  knew  just  so  much.  A  wild  but,  as 
it  proved,  saving  instinct  seized  both  of  us.  Without 
a  moment's  hesitation,  I  carrying  the  rod  with  the 
bait  still  on  the  hook,  we  started  off  in  pursuit  of  the 
train,  the  demonstrations  from  the  window,  though 
growing  more  distant,  cheering  us  on.  It  was  those 
alone  indeed  that  buoyed  us  on.  We  thought  it 
suggested  some  hope,  absurd  though  it  seemed  to  run 
after  a  railway  train,  howsoever  slow  its  pace.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  we  proved  by  a  mere  accident  to  be 
little  over  half  a  mile  from  the  next  station.     But 

36 


THE  MICROBE 

we  ran  one  of  those  agonising  sprints  that  most  of  us 
have  had  occasionally  to  suffer  at  one  time  or  another. 
Doubtless  our  party  by  painting  the  tragedy  of  the 
situation,  melted  the  heart  of  the  stationmaster,  or 
possibly  even  oiled  his  palm.  But  at  any  rate  we  arrived 
in  time  and  fell  panting  and  breathless,  rod  and  all,  into 
the  laps  of  our  most  indignant  seniors.  I  am  afraid  that 
this  here  veraciously  narrated  incident  was  told  with 
growing  improvements,  in  the  circle  to  which  we  both 
belonged,  for  many  a  long  year  afterwards.  Indeed, 
I  have  listened  to  it  oftentimes  myself,  how  we  raced 
a  slow  Swiss  train,  caught  it  up  in  full  career,  and  were 
dragged  through  the  window  ;  and  for  myself,  I  almost 
came  to  believe  in  these,  its  heroic  features.  But  at 
the  time  far  from  being  heroes  we  were  in  considerable 
disgrace  with  the  rest  of  the  party  for  our  quite  un- 
pardonable absent-mindedness. 

A  dull,  cheerless,  showery  day  at  Chur,  where  some 
small,  attenuated,  blue-looking  boiled  trout,  served 
cold,  had  aroused  my  curiosity  and  also  contempt  from 
a  culinary  point  of  view,  sent  me  out  scouring  the 
country,  rod  in  hand.  The  first  mountains  of  six 
thousand  feet  or  so  I  had  ever  seen  towered  im- 
mediately above,  I  remember,  and  impressed  me 
mightily.  A  mile  or  two  away  I  came  upon  the 
upper  Rhine,  a  big  stream  sprawling  just  here  over  a 
broad,  shallow,  stony  bed.  Having,  as  already  noted, 
the  sentiment  of  topography  strong  within  me,  I 
burned  to  record  the  capture  of  one  trout  at  least  in 
the  famous  river.  I  succeeded  just  so  far,  wading  into 
cold,  half  blue,  half  milky-looking  shallows  and  killing 
one  miserable  specimen   after  the   pattern  of  those 

37 


CLEAR  WATERS 

served  in  the  hotel.  However,  I  have  it  duly  entered 
in  my  journal.  July  ist. — Rhine,  one  trout.  Settled  in 
the  Engadine  for  most  of  the  ensuing  month,  between 
the  mountain  climbs  or  on  wet  days,  of  which  last  I 
remember  there  was  a  fair  sprinkling,  I  scoured  the 
lakes  and  streams  over  what  is  now  the  happy  hunting- 
ground,  winter  and  summer,  of  thousands  of  tourists. 
In  those  days  it  had  only  been  partially  discovered. 
The  hotels  were  few,  small,  and  undeniably  rough. 
A  sizeable  caravanserai  at  St.  Moritz  alone  suggested 
any  flavour  of  the  outer  world.  But,  large  or  small, 
they  seemed  to  me  most  dreary  and  forlorn,  though  I 
probably  troubled  their  interior  as  little  perhaps  as 
any  one.  Though  neither  an  epicure  nor  a  sybarite 
the  food  struck  even  me  as  unpalatable  and  painfully 
monotonous.  My  seniors,  who  were  old  habitues, 
came  prepared  to  rough  it  and  to  depend  largely  on 
bread,  honey,  stewed  fruit,  and  boiled  trout.  I  shared, 
I  am  afraid,  the  schoolboy  prejudice  of  that  day  for 
a  beef  and  beer  diet.  We  were  regaled  to  be  sure 
with  portions  of  what  my  experienced  elders  alluded 
to  with  holiday  levity  as  goat,  but  I  did  not  myself 
see  any  fun  in  it.  But  the  outdoor  fascinations  of 
course  far  outweighed  the  indoor  shortcomings  of  the 
then  primitive  Engadine.  The  landlord  seemed  to 
be  on  terms  of  old  acquaintance  with  the  few  English 
who  then  forgathered  here,  most  of  them  university 
dons  or  the  like,  all  of  whom  seemed  to  know  personally 
one  or  other  of  our  party.  We  were  at  Pontresina 
mostly,  and  neither  there  nor  anywhere  else  except 
at  the  St.  Moritz  hotel  could  there  have  been  accom- 
modation for  very  many  visitors.     What  the  epicu- 

38 


THE  MICROBE 

rean  tourists  of  to-day  would  have  said  to  the  menage 
I  cannot  imagine  ! 

The  trouting  potentialities  of  the  Engadine,  how- 
ever, offered  to  my  but  half-experienced  eye  a  great 
and  virgin  field,  not  virgin  in  one  sense,  for  the  native 
anglers  were  in  considerable  evidence,  and  doubtless 
are  so  still,  with  gigantic  bamboo  poles,  from  which 
they  flung  an  impaled  grasshopper  on  lake  and  stream. 
They  wondered  at  my  Uttle  jointed  rod  and  Mr.  Pul- 
man's  flies,  for  I  doubt  if  they  had  ever  seen  such  an 
outfit  before.  No  Englishman,  so  far  as  I  could  learn, 
had  ever  then  fished  there.  I  had  compiled  a  fishing 
vocabulary,  which  I  still  have,  of  about  forty  German 
words  relating  to  the  sport.  So  with  the  help  of 
gesticulations  I  could  put  leading  questions  to  my 
brother  sportsmen  if  not  exchange  fish  stories  with 
them.  But  they  either  did  not  answer  at  all,  or  over- 
whelmed me  with  such  torrents  of  eloquence  that 
I  was  glad  to  escape,  no  wiser  than  before.  The  trout 
were  small,  sometimes  of  a  colour  and  condition  that 
won  my  approval,  sometimes  of  the  blue  and  starve- 
ling type  suggestive  of  glacier  water.  I  was  not  very 
successful,  but  it  was  novel  and  interesting,  and  on 
each  occasion  some  fresh  prospect  held  out  untold 
possibilities.  The  experiences  of  Devonshire  no  doubt 
wanted  some  readjustment.  But  one  or  two  ventures 
did  prove  quite  successful. 

Now  my  Oxonian  companion  had  been  quite  badly 
bitten  by  my  enthusiasm,  and  for  lack  of  alternative 
had  invested  a  franc  or  two  in  a  twenty-foot  bamboo 
pole.  It  was  unhandy  to  be  sure  as  an  article  of  bag- 
gage, and  when  we  shifted  quarters  I  well  remember 

39 


CLEAR  WATERS 

him  bearing  it  nobly  aloft  on  an  eight-hour  walk  over 
one  of  the  passes  into  Italy,  which  will  attest  the 
measure  of  his  new-born  zeal.     It  happened  that  we 
were  all  stopping  a  few  days  at  the  little  hotel,  then 
the  only  one  on  the  shores  of  the  top  lake  of  the  En- 
gadine — Sils  Maria,  I  think  it  is  called.    One  afternoon, 
just  below  the  outlet  from  this  lake  of  the  river  Inn, 
where  it  swished  gently  through  some  hay  meadows, 
my  friend  and  I  struck  a  really  good  rise  of  fish,  and 
nice   weU-conditioned  ones,   too.     We  were    puUing 
them  out  almost  every  cast,  the  bamboo  participating 
fully  in  the  sport,  when  we  became  aware  of  a  tall  and 
portly   figure   advancing   towards   us   with   minatory 
gesture.     It    was    evidently    the    proprietor    of    the 
meadows,  and  though  the  waters  were  not  preserved, 
it  was,  we  learned,  and  is  still,  no  doubt,  in  Switzer- 
land a  high  misdemeanour  to  tread  even  harmlessly 
upon  the  edge  of  hay-fields  before  the  crop  has  been 
cut.     This  may  have  been  the  situation,  then,  but  we 
did  not  realise  it,  or  we  may  possibly  have  been  merely 
wading  in  the  shallow  edge  of  the  water.      At  any 
rate  we  held,  and  probably  with  justice,  that  we  were 
doing   no   damage.     And   when   the   old   gentleman 
opened  fire  with  volley  after  volley,  concerning  the 
purport  of  which  there  could  be  no  manner  of  doubt, 
we  merely  rejoined  at  intervals,  I  regret  to  say,  with  a 
*  Nein  Deutsche  nein  Deutsch.''    The  sport  was  too  good ; 
we  simply  could  not  leave  it.     And  I  fear  we  didn't 
till   the   rise   stopped   and  our   persecutor  had  long 
retired  shaking  his  stick  at  us  and  inveighing,  no  doubt, 
with  what  breath  he  had  left  on  the  accursed  British 
race.     On  that  occasion  we  quite  filled  a  long  botanical 

40 


THE  MICROBE 

tin  I  had  borrowed  from  one  of  the  ladies  and  used  to 
carry  slung  on  a  strap  in  lieu  of  a  creel.  On  the  next 
day,  I  see  by  the  before-mentioned  journal,  I  got 
nearly  as  good  a  basket  close  to  the  outlet  of  the  lake. 
A  black  palmer  and  a  red-upright  (red  quill)  being 
recorded  as  the  effective  lures  on  both  occasions.  I 
should  have  assuredly  remembered  the  first  item 
without  the  assistance  of  the  journal  if  only  for  an 
amusing  scene  that  occurred  in  the  salle  a  manger  of 
the  little  inn  where  we  were  staying.  The  success  of 
these  two  days  had  greatly  impressed  our  waiter,  a 
tall,  sad-looking  man,  who  apparently  in  his  leisure 
hours — otherwise  those  of  the  night — was  an  ardent 
wielder  of  the  bamboo  and  grasshopper.  He  ex- 
hibited great  amazement  and  curiosity  at  the  fragile 
and  diminutive  nature  of  our  artificial  flies.  So  I 
presented  him  with  a  few  black  palmers,  upon  which 
he  fell  on  his  knees  upon  the  bare  floor,  and  clasping 
my  two  hands  between  his  own,  poured  out  a  torrent 
of  gratitude  before  the  rest  of  the  party,  who  were 
greatly  impressed.  He  went  out,  so  he  told  us  the 
next  morning,  and  fished  all  night  on  the  strength  of 
it,  but  alas !  caught  nothing,  as  might,  perhaps,  poor 
fellow,  be  expected  under  the  circumstances. 

I  never  shall  forget,  however,  one  tragic  incident 
that  happened  a  few  days  after  this,  and  though  it  had 
nothing  to  do  with  fishing,  it  had  everything  to  do 
with  a  mountain  stream.  I  cannot  recall  the  name 
of  the  place  or  the  precise  locality,  never  having  been 
in  Switzerland  since.  But  I  think  it  occurred  during 
a  few  days  in  the  Austrian  Tyrol.  I  remember  we 
journeyed  for  hours  in  berg-wagonSy  by  rough  tracks 

41 


CLEAR  WATERS 

through  pine  forests  and  picnicked  at  an  old  bear- 
hunter's  hut.  Thence  proceeding,  we  reached  a 
valley  village  crossing  at  its  entrance  a  little  brook  we 
scarcely  noticed,  it  was  so  insignificant.  Just  after 
reaching  the  rustic  inn,  early  in  the  afternoon,  one  of 
the  most  fearful  storms  I  have  ever  seen,  either  in  the 
old  or  the  new  world,  burst  upon  the  devoted  spot, 
accompanied  by  terrific  thunder  and  Hghtning,  while 
the  rain  fell  for  three  or  four  hours  in  solid  sheets. 
Possibly  what  the  Americans  call  a  cloudburst  occurred 
higher  up.  For  within  that  period  the  trifling  brook 
had  become  a  raging  torrent,  rolling  great  rocks  before 
it  through  the  village  as  if  they  had  been  packing- 
cases.  The  village  itself  was  on  a  slope  and  no  great 
damage  was  done  to  the  buildings,  but  the  entire 
breadth  of  ttUage  and  meadow  lands  filling  the  floor 
of  the  narrow  valley,  and  on  which  the  inhabitants 
depended  for  their  Hvelihood,  was  absolutely  de- 
stroyed ;  not  merely  the  crops  of  the  year,  which  would 
have  meant  mere  temporary  disaster,  but  the  soil  was 
washed  clean  away  and  nothing  left  but  the  hard  sterile 
pan,  Uttered  with  great  deposits  of  sand  and  gravel 
and  masses  of  rocks  and  boulders.  The  despair  of  the 
unfortunate  people  was  dreadful,  and  it  was  in  truth 
a  most  harrowing  scene,  being  unprecedented  in  the 
experience  of  that  generation.  The  women  flung 
themselves  on  their  knees  or  rushed  wildly  hither  and 
thither  with  their  menfolk.  It  fell  to  my  father, 
the  only  man  remaining  of  our  now  diminished  party, 
to  be  the  recipient,  in  the  excitement  of  the  moment, 
of  many  woebegone  out-pourings  which  I  witnessed. 
When  we  got  home  he  wrote  to  the  papers  and  got 
42 


THE  MICROBE 

up  a  subscription  for  the  ruined  village,  but  I  cannot 
imagine  how  life  went  with  them.  For  I  have  often 
since  that  time  seen  alluvial  valley  land  washed  away 
after  the  same  fashion  in  America,  and  know  well 
what  it  means.  But  in  such  cases  it  was  merely  por- 
tions of  large  properties,  and  the  loss  was  not  irretriev- 
able. But  still  the  land  affected  remains  useless  for  ages, 
and  how  these  unfortunates  fared,  to  whom  their 
land  was  their  all,  I  cannot  conceive. 


43 


CLEAR  WATERS 


II 

THE  WELSH  DEE 

THE  cult  of  the  Highlands  has  been  so 
dominant  among  south  country  sports- 
men and  tourists  of  later  generations,  that 
the  ancient  fame  of  the  Welsh  Dee  has  been  in  a 
measure  eclipsed  by  its  northern  namesake.  It 
seems  always  to  require  the  distinguishing  prefix 
which  writers  on  the  Scottish  Dee  appear  to  regard 
as  superfluous.  Royalty,  moreover,  now  dwells 
upon  the  banks  of  the  Highland  river,  and  has 
further  glorified  it.  It  is  a  long  time  since  seven  kings 
rowed  upon  the  Welsh  Dee  with  their  would-be  Saxon 
suzerain  as  cox,  though  how  they  succeeded  with 
such  a  lob-sided  crew  in  trimming  the  boat  history 
does  not  say.  The  Angevin  and  Plantagenet  kings 
knew  only  one  Dee,  this  Welsh  one,  and  that  pretty 
nearly  as  well  as  they  knew  the  Thames,  and  usually 
to  their  great  discomfort.  And  did  not  Henry  of 
Bolingbroke  and  his  son  know  every  yard  of  its  banks 
from  Chirk  to  Bala  through  the  long  years  before 
they  had  finished  with  its  unconquerable  son  Owain 
of  Glyndyfrdwy,  Owen  of  the  Glen  of  the  Dee,  More- 
over, is  not  the  Dyfrdwy  by  ancient  tradition  held  as 
sacred,  a  fact  its  very  name  proclaims  to  the  initiated. 

44 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

Divine  mystic  attributes  have  vaguely  clung  to  its 
clear  restless  waters  since  time  began  for  bards  and 
seers,  and  it  has  pleased  them  all  from  Taliesin  to 
Tennyson  to  fancy  that  its  streams  whisper  the  for- 
gotten secrets  of  ancient  days.  The  dry-fly  purist,  I 
know,  feels  none  of  these  things.  Nay,  he  seems 
almost  to  resent  their  association  with  fishing.  He 
does  not  understand  what  they  have  to  do  with  it, 
and  so  there  is  nothing  more  to  be  said.  But  there 
are  no  dry-fly  purists  upon  the  Dee.  It  is  pre- 
eminently a  wet-fly  river.  For  myself  I  admit  without 
shame  that  the  romantic  scenery  of  the  upper,  or 
Welsh,  half  of  the  Dee,  and  more  especially  that  which 
I  have  chiefly  frequented,  added  to  the  wealth  of  story 
that  gathers  about  its  banks,  has  been  to  me  an  in- 
finite addition  to  the  more  material  but  engrossing 
pursuit  of  its  fish. 

Now,  in  the  very  heart  of  North  Wales,  fringed 
with  the  gracious  verdure  of  farms,  hamlets,  and 
country  houses,  but  in  the  lap  of  overhanging  grouse 
moors,  Llyn  Tegid,  or  as  we  usually  call  it  from  the 
little  town  at  its  lower  end,  Bala  lake,  spreads  its  five- 
mile  length.  The  Dee  comes  brawling  out  of  it  a  full- 
fledged  lusty  river,  having  entered  it  but  a  trifling 
brook.  It  is  sometimes  said,  probably  by  those  who 
have  had  but  a  passing  glance  from  the  train  windows, 
that  Bala  lake  is  of  no  great  scenic  account.  I  don't 
know  how  that  may  be.  But  from  its  unruffled  bosom 
on  a  still  summer  evening,  I  have  seen  the  peaks  of 
Arran,  which  pile  up  some  three  thousand  feet  behind 
its  western  end,  reflecting  their  shapely  masses  in  its 
glassy  surface  as  in  a  mirror.     This  I  think  is  sufficient, 

45 


CLEAR  WATERS 

even  if  it  were  all  or  anything  like  all,  to  save  the 
character  of  a  sheet  of  water  that  is  hardly  twice  as 
far  from  London  as  the  Norfolk  Broads !  Out  of 
these  wild  hills  and  moors  that  mass  themselves 
behind  the  head  of  Bala  lake,  as  do  other  moors 
and  mountains  farther  back,  and  less  obviously,  to 
the  north  and  south  of  it,  come  leaping  many 
impetuous  streams ;  notably  three,  of  which  the 
smallest  and  the  middle  one  holds  the  honours,  and 
with  piping  voice  proclaims  itself  the  Dyfrdwy,  other- 
wise the  sacred  Dee. 

Why  it  should  be  so  I  know  not,  for  both  the  others 
to  the  north  and  south  respectively,  the  Twrch  and 
the  Lliw,  are  quite  sizeable  fishing  streams,  while  the 
Dyfrdwy  is  something  less  than  that.  The  habitual 
traveller  to  Barmouth  or  Dolgelly  knows  it  well,  if 
not  its  import,  as  the  train  climbs  up  the  lonely  pass 
towards  the  seacoast  watershed,  for  as  a  brown  peaty 
brook,  playing  among  the  mosses,  the  bogs,  the  rocks, 
the  alders,  and  the  birches,  it  twists  in  and  out  of  the 
line  till  somewhere  in  the  bosky  foreground  it  dis- 
appears from  sight  and  mind.  And  if  the  traveller 
cranes  his  neck  a  little  and  knows  when  to  look  up,  he 
will  see  for  a  moment  or  two  the  crest  of  Arran  Benllyn, 
with  a  patch  of  snow  in  most  months  upon  its  northern 
tip.  It  is  not  for  nothing  that  the  infant  Dee  comes 
breaking  out  from  its  foot,  since  it  is  this  sombre  birth- 
place that  made  the  great  river  below  sacred  in  the 
eyes  of  the  men  of  old  and  in  the  ears  of  poets  of  all 
ages.  For  here,  following  tradition,  Spenser  places  the 
scene  of  young  King  Arthur's  upbringing  by  Timon, 
his  foster  father. 

46 


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THE  WELSH  DEE 

His  dwelling  is  low  in  a  valley  green, 

Under  the  foot  of  Rauran  ^  mossy  hore, 

From  whence  the  River  Dee,  as  silver  clean. 

His  tumbling  billows  roll  with  gentle  rore  : 

There  all  my  days  he  trained  me  up  in  veriruous  lore. 

But  it  was  not  hereabouts  that  I  used  to  go,  and 
occasionally  still  go,  seriously  a-fishing.  For  there  is  a 
bit  of  the  river,  some  seven  miles  in  all,  that  for  the  last 
quarter  of  a  century  has  always  held  me  as  the  period 
of  the  March  brown  draws  near — sometimes  only 
in  dreams,  sometimes  to  accomplishment.  This  is 
between  the  old  five-arched  stone  bridge  at  Llan- 
saintffraid — ^lately  re-christened  Carrog,  since  there 
are  seventeen  Llansaintffraids  in  Wales,  and  the  chain 
bridge  over  the  rapids  at  Berwyn  just  above  Llan- 
gollen. From  Bala  to  Corwen,  a  dozen  miles,  and 
indeed  on  to  Carrog,  two  miles  below  again,  the 
curving  river  sweeps  through  the  meadowy  vale  of 
Edeyrnion  in  alternating  stream  and  pool  and  always 
overhung  hy  the  high,  waving  barrier  of  the  Berwyn 
mountains.  After  this  it  enters  the  narrow  troughs 
of  Glyndyfrdwy  and  thenceforward,  amid  a  beautiful 
confusion  of  wood  and  rock,  pressed  between  unfold- 
ing heights  of  quite  imposing  stature,  urges  its  resound- 
ing course  into  the  famous  vale  of  Llangollen. 

The  traveller  by  the  Great  Western  to  the  west 
coast  watering-places,  already  invoked  at  the  cradle 
of  Arthur,  scarcely  leaves  the  Dee,  from  its  entry  into 
England  at  Ruabon  to  its  source  in  the  Arrans.  In  the 
reaches  I  have  in  mind,  however,  the  river  is  so  buried 
in  woods  that  there  is  little  to  be  seen  of  it  after  the 

1  Arran. 

47 


CLEAR  WATERS 

burst  of  the  leaf.  In  the  days  of  that  misnamed 
insect,  the  March  brown,  however,  otherwise  early 
or  mid  April,  there  are  not  yet  any  leaves.  The  larch 
is  having  its  brief  hour  of  pre-eminence,  and  with  the 
radiancy  of  its  fresh  tender  green  is  filling  the  souls 
of  men  with  thankfulness  before  they  forget  it  in  the 
ampler  promise  of  spring.  The  willows,  too,  are 
helping  to  brighten  the  still  brown  and  gray  tone  of 
the  woods,  and  the  buds  of  the  giant  sycamores  that 
love  the  banks  and  hillsides  of  the  Dee  are  but  waiting 
for  a  week  of  zephyrs  and  sunshine  to  strike  yet  one 
more  note  of  gladness  in  the  great  curtain  of  foliage. 
I  know  nowhere  any  finer  vistas  of  woodland  and 
fretting  waters  than  unfold  themselves  to  the  few 
whose  privilege  it  is  to  follow  them  through  the 
lengthening  days  and  through  the  ancient  domain  of 
the  mysterious  hero  of  Wales.  The  railroad,  moreover, 
here  abandons  for  once  in  sheer  despair  the  tortuous 
defiles  of  the  Dee,  and  burrowing  through  the  great 
shoulder  of  a  mountain,  leaves  the  river  to  describe  a 
wide  horse-shoe  loop  of  several  miles  and  to  chafe  the 
broad  green  base  of  Moel  Gamelin,  whose  crest,  some 
seventeen  hundred  feet  in  air,  makes  again  and  again 
a  perfect  background  to  the  glancing  waters  and  the 
encompassing  woods.  But  you  must  be  down  in  the 
water  to  see  all  this,  and  the  wading  is  as  rough  and 
slippery  as  that  of  any  bit  of  river  it  has  ever  been 
given  me  to  walk  about  in,  and  these  have  been  a  good 
few.  It  is  not  nice  to  sit  down  suddenly,  certainly 
not  in  the  Dee  in  April,  for  the  chill  of  the  snow  is 
generally  still  in  the  water.  The  trout  are  astir 
betimes  here,  and  it  may  be  added  they  retire  early 

48 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

— early  in  the  season,  that  is  to  say.  Save  those  of 
the  lower  Usk,  which  are  even  more  so,  I  know  no  other 
river-trout  in  this  respect  so  curious.  Innocent  wights, 
from  Liverpool  or  elsewhere,  come  along  in  June,  to 
say  nothing  of  the  next  two  months,  and  finding  a 
glorious-looking  river  just  fining  down  perhaps  from 
a  flood,  take  out  a  ticket,  and,  unless  the  look  of  the 
wading  scares  them,  labour  diligently  and  full  of  hope. 
But  they  never  catch  anything  to  speak  of,  not  with 
a  fly  at  any  rate,  and  comparing  notes  with  other 
innocents  perhaps  upon  the  bank,  or  with  others  in  the 
outside  world,  they  decide  that  the  Dee  is  no  good, 
or  that  there  are  no  trout.  They  have  never  seen  a 
rise  of  March  brown  on  the  sacred  stream,  nor  yet 
those  baskets,  sometimes  hovering  on  twenty  pounds 
weight,  that  in  early  April  are  lifted  out  of  the  coracle 
in  the  evening  at  the  horse-shoe  weir  by  Llantisilio. 

The  basket,  to  be  sure,  may  be  proportionately 
light,  for  Dee  trout  are  tricky,  but  not  often  does 
such  misfortune  fall  to  the  coracle  fisher  of  reasonable 
skill  under  reasonable  conditions.  For  it  should  be 
explained  that  there  are  two  methods  of  adventuring 
these  Glyndyfrdwy  waters.  You  may  wade  them  or 
fish  them  dry-shod  from  a  coracle  as  it  bears  you 
swiftly  or  slowly,  according  to  the  river's  momentary 
humours,  over  the  surface.  The  former  is  the  more 
usual  method,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  only  one, 
or  at  the  most  two  coracles  with  their  skippers  are 
available,  according  to  the  rules  of  the  Association 
which  controls  these  waters.  And  furthermore,  when 
the  river  is  low,  which  in  a  dry  spring  is  of  course  the 
case,  coracling  is  tiresome  if  not  actually  impossible. 
D  49 


CLEAR  WATERS 

There  is  nothing  novel  in  a  day's  wading,  though  it 
has  its  little  incidents.  But  trouting  from  a  coracle 
in  rapid  water,  as  here  practised,  is  an  art  unique,  I 
think,  in  Great  Britain,  though  there  are  coracles  used 
under  different  conditions  on  some  other  Welsh 
rivers.  I  shall  therefore  say  something  of  it.  Certainly 
the  exhilaration  of  those  fevered  hours,  which  once 
a  year  I  generally  treated  myself  to,  is  not  decreased 
by  the  feeling  that  there  are  probably  not  twenty 
anglers  in  the  kingdom  who  ever  share  such  experiences. 

When  I  first  embarked  on  those  novel  voyages 
Evan  Evans  was  the  only  licensed  *  cwrwgle '  man 
on  the  water,  and  both  he  and  his  craft  abode  at 
Llangollen.  HUs  procedure  then,  like  that  of  his 
successors  of  to-day,  was  to  come  up  with  his  coracle 
by  the  morning  train  to  Carrog  station,  and  there, 
two  hundred  yards  away,  on  Llansaintffraid  bridge, 
to  find  his  fare  awaiting  him.  For  it  was  more  than 
likely  the  latter  would  be  stopping  at  that  snug  but 
simple  Httle  hostelry  The  Grouse,  just  above  the 
bridge,  where  as  many  fish  stories  for  the  size  of  the 
place  and  its  company  have  been  told,  I  should  think, 
as  in  any  similar  haunt  in  Britain,  during  the  last  half- 
century.  For  there  were  many  miles  of  streamy, 
easily-waded  waters  handy  to  it  for  both  trout  and 
salmon,  and  nine  miles  of  rugged,  woody,  and  strong 
pent-up  currents  below.  The  inn  windows,  too, 
looked  right  down  on  the  old  seventeenth-century 
bridge  with  its  five  massive  arches,  through  which 
you  could  hear  the  river  softly  swishing  as  you  lay  in 
bed  at  night. 

Many  an  Easter  tourist  bound  for  Barmouth  has 
50 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

gaped  wonderingly  from  the  carriage  window  as  Evan 
Evans  or  his  successor  hauls  his  relic  of  the  Brythonic 
period  out  of  the  guard's  van  at  Carrog  station, 
hoists  it  on  his  back,  and  waddles  away  down  the  road 
towards  the  river,  like  some  prehistoric  tortoise  on  its 
hind-legs.  For  a  coracle  is  really  rather  an  uncanny 
thing  at  the  first  acquaintance,  and  there  must  be 
something  uplifting  in  the  sight  of  it.  Otherwise 
its  ejection  from  the  guard's  van  at  way-stations  here- 
abouts would  not  stir  up  the  English  passengers  in  the 
way  it  invariably  does — the  young  ones  particularly. 
Indeed  it  is  a  fine  opportunity  for  the  Liverpool  or 
Birmingham  quiverful,  of  historical  temperament,  to 
test  the  diligence  with  which  his  offspring  have  perused 
the  glowing  pages  of  Mrs.  Markham  or  whatever 
stands  to-day  for  that  incomparable  book.  I  have 
heard  him  myself  in  my  innumerable  journeys  up 
and  down  that  bit  of  railroad  improve  the  occasion 
more  than  once. 

Indeed  I  feel  strongly  the  ancient  British  sentiment 
of  the  coracle  myself  when  I  am  rocking  down  the 
river  in  it,  so  utterly  unlike  is  it  to  any  other  craft, 
while  the  romance  of  the  passage  heightens  illusions. 
It  is  true  that  the  wickerwork  is  now  covered  with 
tarpaulin  instead  of  with  the  hides  of  ferce  natures ; 
but  that  is  a  detail.  The  shape  is  intimidating  to  the 
novice  on  first  going  aboard,  a  rough  oblong,  perhaps 
five  feet  long  and  half  as  wide,  riding  high  in  the  water 
and  pressed  in  a  little  at  the  waist,  where  a  plank  seat 
is  stretched  across.  Upon  this  two  feet  or  so  of  board 
the  pilot  and  passenger  sit  side  by  side  at  extremely 
close  quarters.     The  former  wields  a  short  one-bladed 

51 


CLEAR  WATERS 

paddle,  the  handle  of  which  is  pressed  into  his  armpit 
while  the  blade  is  worked  with  one  hand  mainly  under 
water.  The  figure  eight  is  the  normal  stroke,  but 
there  are  situations  in  a  coracle's  heady  course  down 
a  river  like  this  when  the  Lord  knows  what  hiero- 
glyphics the  supple  blade  is  compelled  to  describe  on 
the  churning  waters. 

Evan  Evans  was  a  man  of  method  ever  since  he 
had  become  a  teetotaller,  and  that  was  some  four  or 
five  years  before  my  visits  to  the  river  began.  He 
always  commenced  operations  with  two  dock  glasses 
of  port  at  The  Grouse.  When  you  asked  him  in 
the  ordinary  course  of  procedure  in  those  bad  old 
days  what  he  would  have,  he  always  replied  that  he 
had  long  since  sworn  off  liquor,  but  that  he  wouldn't 
mind  a  glass  of  port,  which,  it  is  needless  to  say,  the 
prescient  landlady  had  as  nearly  poured  out  as  decency 
would  allow.  Then  with  the  absurd  freedom  of  those 
days,  tempered,  however,  by  a  just  discrimination  of 
the  effect  of  such  an  innocuous  dose  on  a  gentleman 
with  a  past — of  which  a  word  presently — and  the 
prospective  security  of  a  long  voyage  with  nothing 
on  board  but  your  pocket  flask,  you  asked  him  to  have 
another.  This  also  he  swallowed  like  a  dose  of  medi- 
cine and  then  declared  himself  ready — nay,  in  a  hurry 
to  embark.  I  never  ventured  to  call  for  a  bottle  of 
port  in  the  most  social  hour  at  The  Grouse,  for  the 
whisky  was  excellent,  but  I  had  confidence  in  its 
futility  for  evil  in  my  pilot's  case.  You  couldn't  look 
at  him  and  doubt  this.  Besides  he  had  experienced 
one  terrible  warning,  which  indeed  had  forced  him  to 
take  the  pledge.     For  the  reader  may  not  be  aware 

52 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

that  port  is  regarded  as  a  temperance  drink  in  the 
robuster  circles  of  the  class  who  are  now  our  masters. 
But  I  have  since  ascertained  that  this  is  so.  For  the 
liberties  of  the  pledged  Evan  Evans  used  to  surprise 
and  even  pain  me  a  little,  though  I  was  weak  enough 
to  pander  to  them.  Now  that  I  know  better,  I  have 
long  since  regretted  my  uncharitable  thoughts. 

Moreover  Evan  was  a  teetotaller  practically  under 
compulsion,  the  committee  of  the  Association  having 
been  the  determining  factor.  In  former  days  he  had 
been  more  than  a  little  addicted  to  czorw'^  when  on 
shore,  which  in  his  case  was  for  most  days  of  the  year, 
like  others  who  brave  stormy  waters  and  have  more 
excuse.  Some  three  or  four  years  previously  he  had 
tipped  over  a  member  of  Parliament  in  the  Pentre 
pool,  and  there  had  been  a  great  to-do,  though  the 
passenger  with  some  difficulty  got  to  shore  and  there- 
by saved  the  Government  the  unpleasantness  of  a 
by-election.  The  indignant  politician  said  Evan  had 
come  aboard  under  the  influence  of  cwrw.  Evan 
stoutly  denied  it,  and  told  his  friends  and  all  his 
succeeding  fares  that  the  statesman  had  lunched  too 
well  on  the  bank  and  upset  him.  It  was  awkward, 
as  Evan,  being  a  sportsman  and  much  in  company  with 
the  *  shentlemens,'  was  a  stout  Tory,  and  in  conse- 
quence regarded  askance  by  the  minister  of  the  chapel 
that  his  wife  went  to  in  Llangollen ;  while  the 
politician  was  a  Radical  who  lived  sumptuously,  so 
altogether  it  was  rather  awkward  for  Evan  Evans. 
Expert  coraclists,  however,  are  extremely  scarce,  so 
the  committee  forgave  him  on  the  condition  of  total 

1  Ale. 

53 


CLEAR  WATERS 

abstinence,  which  terms    Evan   accepted,    and  stuck 
conscientiously  to  port  ever  after. 

A  short  stiffish  rod  of  eight  or  nine  feet,  a  cast  not 
too  fine,  and  three  flies  was  the  outfit  for  a  coracle, 
and  after  embarkation,  which  is  always  a  delicate 
business,  we  swung  out  on  to  the  bridge  pool  and 
commenced  our  seven  or  eight  mile  journey.  We 
had  to  make  it  in  rather  less  than  that  number  of  hours, 
for  Berwyn  station  was  the  only  point  where  the  lower 
half  of  the  water  touched  the  railroad  or  anything  like 
it,  and  as  there  were  not  many  trains  in  April  on  that 
single-track  line,  we  both,  I  to  return,  and  my  pilot 
with  his  boat  to  go  on  home  to  Llangollen,  had  to 
catch  the  last  one.  We  fished,  therefore,  after  the 
manner  of  coracle-fishing,  as  much  water  in  an  hour 
as  a  wader  hereabouts  would  cover  in  a  day.  For  in 
a  coracle  you  are  always  on  the  move,  slipping  down 
and  down  with  the  current,  casting  rapidly  here  and 
there  in  the  eddies,  boils,  or  smooth  fringes  of  the 
tumbling  streams — fore-handed,  back-handed,  or  any 
way  that  comes  convenient  at  the  moment. 

There  is  no  retracing  your  steps.  Frequently  there 
is  no  opportunity  to  throw  a  second  time  over  a  risen 
fish.  In  so  large  a  river  as  the  Dee,  when  it  is  fairly 
full,  there  is  often  a  choice  of  routes  through  the  long 
reaches  of  rocky  and  troubled  waters.  You  can't 
indeed  cover  it  all  even  in  this  hasty  fashion  ;  there 
is  often  an  embarrassment  of  riches  both  to  the  right 
and  to  the  left,  and  one  of  them  has  to  be  passed  by 
untested.  Sometimes  one  side  is  better  than  the 
other  in  the  choice  of  trouty  spots,  and  Evan  is  not 
likely  to  select  the  worst.     Where  the  current  is  not 

54 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

too  strong,  and  extra  tempting  patches  of  surface  come 
within  reach  of  your  flies,  the  skipper,  by  violent 
agitation  of  his  paddle  and  some  straining  of  body 
and  legs,  will  hold  you  in  position  against  the  stream 
for  a  few  fleeting  moments.  The  aim  of  the  coraclist 
is  to  run  down  sideways,  so  that  the  angler  is  casting 
crosswise  with  the  streams  while  the  pilot  checks  the  pace 
at  which  we  should  naturally  run.  It  may  be  one  bank 
you  are  facing,  it  may  be  the  other,  or  again  the  centre 
of  the  river  for  a  short  space,  where  the  fashion  of  the 
rocks  and  ledges  attract  the  angler's  accustomed  eye. 

Till  you  get  the  right  sense  of  proportion  into  your 
head,  the  wavering  trail  of  the  coracle  seems  strewn 
with  vain  regrets.  All  the  time  you  are  flitting  over 
good  water  which  it  seems  you  can  merely  scratch, 
work  as  hard  as  you  may  and  fish  as  fast  as  you  can. 
There  are  sometimes  half  a  dozen  spots  within  reach 
at  once,  upon  any  of  which  under  normal  conditions 
you  would  cast  a  careful  and  expectant  fly.  But  as 
it  is,  only  one  can  be  sampled,  and  that  too  both 
quickly  and  with  some  scope  for  judgment.  It  is  a 
good  test  assuredly  of  the  wet-fly  fisherman's  instinct 
for  the  hidden  lair  of  a  trout,  of  the  '  smittle  '  spots, 
as  they  would  say  in  Cumberland.  Yet  it  is  well  to 
cast  from  a  coracle  as  fast  and  as  frequently  as  you 
can  in  reason.  For  it  is  not  only  that  you  thus  cover 
a  larger  proportion  of  the  tempting  water,  but  much 
more  often  than  not  a  trout  takes  a  fly  within  two 
or  three  seconds  of  its  lighting  on  the  water.  It  is 
difficult  to  remember  at  first  that  though  you  are 
leaving  five  out  of  the  six  accessible  casts  untested, 
you  are  fishing  say  eight  miles  instead  of  one,  which 

55 


CLEAR  WATERS 

more  than  equalises  matters.  Moreover  the  coracle 
has  access  to  a  vast  amount  of  water  that  the  wader 
cannot  reach,  and  consequently  to  a  less  harried  set  of 
fish.  Finally  the  coraclist,  if  handy  at  his  job,  enjoys 
the  assurance  that  he  will  have  a  basket  at  the  end  of 
the  day  certainly  twice,  probably  thrice,  as  heavy  as 
any  wader  on  the  river.  Dee  trout  run  about  three 
to  the  pound  excluding  those  returned  undersized, 
and  that  is  a  good  fighting  size  in  rapid  mountain 
water  like  this.  It  means  of  course  in  a  good  basket 
plenty  of  half-pounders,  and  some  odd  ones  running 
up  to  or  over  a  pound.  One  is  undeniably  rough 
from  a  coracle  upon  those  fish  which  can  stand  rough 
treatment.  Good  water  as  well  as  time  is  lost  in 
playing  a  trout  when  drifting  down,  and  the  desire 
to  get  the  landing-net  under  them  as  quickly  as  possible 
is  overmastering.  But  you  can't  play  pranks  like  this 
with  a  half-pounder  in  the  Dee,  still  less  with  a  larger 
fish.  The  best  I  ever  got  from  a  coracle  was  a  pound 
and  a  quarter.  The  river  was  clearing  from  a  freshet 
and  but  half-way  back  to  the  normal  state  with  a  strong 
rise  of  March  brown  on.  He  fastened  near  the  tail 
of  a  strong  smooth  stream  already  quickening  to  the 
head  of  some  boulder-strewn  rapids,  which  threatened 
to  put  some  strain  on  even  Evan's  powers  of  navigation. 
It  was  not  only  the  coracle  but  the  fish  had  to  be 
forced  back  from  the  breakers,  for  trees  kept  us  out 
of  the  bank.  It  was  a  problem  that  produced  the 
most  exciting  ten  minutes  I  ever  had  with  a  trout, 
but  was  in  the  end  successfully  solved.  Evan  was 
splendid,  and  it  is  amazing  what  a  strain  comparatively 
thin  gut  sometimes  stands  when  it  has  got  to  \ 

56 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

But  there  are  quiet  and  less  breathless  interludes 
even  from  a  coracle.  In  the  still  reaches  where  the 
fretting  river  rests  betimes,  it  is  delightful  to  take  your 
time  and  drift  leisurely  down  over  water  that  the 
wader  must  feign  pass  by  with  longing  eyes,  and  shoot 
your  flies  beneath  the  trailing  boughs.  Here,  if  an 
over-venturesome  cast  fixes  your  fly  in  a  twig,  dis- 
engagement is  easy.  In  the  rapid  water  a  similar 
mischance,  as  may  be  imagined,  lands  one  in  infinite 
difficulties  and  delays.  Despatch  is  everything  in  a 
coracle  if  fish  are  rising,  quickness  in  casting,  in  secur- 
ing the  fish  (for  the  skipper  cannot  help  you),  dis- 
engaging the  hook,  or  unravelling  a  tangle  and  getting 
the  cast  on  to  the  water  again.  A  tangle  is  distracting, 
so  is  a  lost  fly,  for  you  cannot  sit  down  on  the  bank  for 
repairs  and  go  on  where  you  left  off,  but  may  be 
passing  in  enforced  idleness  over  water  that  has  been 
fondly  looked  forward  to.  In  high  water,  too,  there 
is  an  element  of  excitement  in  running  some  of  the 
rapids,  if  you  look  at  it  that  way.  But  when  Evan, 
after  surveying  the  angry  surge  and  crowding  rocks 
both  above  and  below,  all  of  which  he  knew  by  heart, 
used  to  say,  '  I  '11  try  it  whatefer,'  one  gripped  the  side 
of  the  coracle,  gave  a  passing  thought  to  the  Radical 
M.P.,  and  held  tight.  It  was  astonishing  how  he 
would  lift  the  little  tub-shaped  craft  this  way  and  that 
as  it  rocked,  rolled,  and  heaved  along  its  apparently 
perilous  course  among  the  boulders. 

A  good  many  men  who  have  seen  it  or  tried  it  don't 
like  coracling.  For  a  large  heavy  man  it  is  beyond  a 
doubt  a  tight  fit.  Nor  has  it  always  much  attraction 
for  an  individual  who  is  not  quite  sure  that  he  can  swim 

57 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  his  clothes.  To  others  again,  unaccustomed  to  light 
crafts,  a  coracle  appears  on  the  very  face  of  it  a  truly 
perilous  mode  of  conveyance.  I  discovered  inciden- 
tally that  an  acquaintance  who  lived  in  Hertfordshire 
had  once  found  himself  fishing  upon  the  Dee  and  had 
been  induced  to  make  the  full  voyage  with  Evan 
Evans,  apparently  on  a  high  water.  I  asked  him  what 
sport  he  had  had.  '  Sport !  '  said  he,  '  I  had  quite 
enough  to  do  hanging  on  for  my  life  without  fishing, 
and  was  only  too  thankful  to  get  safely  down.'  But 
then  he  was  six  feet  two.  Moreover  it  was  before 
Evan  had  become  a  total  abstainer,  and  under  the  in- 
fluence of  cwrw  he  may  have  ridden  his  coracle  over 
a  line  of  country  that  two  glasses  of  port  would  not 
rise  to. 

He  was  an  interesting  companion  too  was  Evan  in 
the  slack  moments  of  lunch  on  the  bank  or  in  blank 
hours.  There  was  nothing  of  the  long-skulled,  swarthy, 
dreamy-looking  Iberian  aboriginal  about  him.  Beyond 
a  doubt  he  was  of  Goidelic  stock,  with  a  face  like  a 
harvest  moon  set  in  a  halo  of  ginger  whisker.  He  was 
in  short  what  is  known  as  a  '  Red  Welshman.'  He 
read  the  river  as  an  open  book,  but  he  was  neither  a 
poet  nor,  I  am  afraid,  a  saint.  The  rest  of  his  in- 
tellectual outfit  mainly  consisted  of  a  stock  of  iron- 
clad prejudices  quite  removed  from  those  usually 
associated  with  his  nation.  He  hated  a  preacher,  for 
instance,  as  heartily  as  any  Frenchman  hates  his  wife's 
priest.  He  hated  March  browns  tied  without  red  legs. 
Above  aU  he  hated  the  wading  fraternity,  which 
automatically  included  myself  on  all  days  but  the 
annual  one,  when  he  pretended  to  ignore  my  other 

58 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

character.  He  declared  they  spoiled  the  river  and 
scared  the  trout,  a  superstition  that  experience  would 
hardly  have  endorsed.  The  waders  by  the  way  said 
the  same  of  the  coracles. 

He  was  very  different,  for  instance,  from  old  Rhys 
the  Watcher,  who  had  no  prejudices  at  all  so  far  as  I 
could  ever  find  out,  certainly  none  against  coracles ;  but 
then  he  had  no  English  to  speak  of.  All  flies  with  him 
were  the  best  on  the  river,  and  every  stray  angler  was 

*  a  capital  shentleman.'  He  was  a  dear  old  man,  like  an 
ex-Hfeguardsman  run  a  bit  to  seed,  thin  and  tall  with 
snowy  whiskers.  He  carried  the  Celtic  predilection, 
and  a  very  nice  one  it  is,  for  saying  what  he  thought 
would  be  pleasant  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  reasonable 
veracity.  But  this  was  not  because  he  was  a  liar,  but 
because  his  English  was  so  limited  and  his  vocabulary 
only  contained  words  of  a  friendly  and  optimistic 
description.  He  hadn't  bothered  to  learn  the  others. 
Whereas  Evan  Evans's  larger  range  included  many 
'  damnatory '  clauses  indispensable  to  his  stout  convic- 
tions. When  Rhys  upon  his  daily  round  descended 
to  the  river,  he  always  remarked  it  was  a  good  day  for 
fishing,  of  which  he  knew  scarcely  anything,  even  if 
it  were  a  north  wind  and  low  water.  But  what  was 
more  serious,  he  would  sometimes  report  great  doings 
by  the  rod  below  before  you  knew  him  thoroughly, 
when  your  own  basket  was  innocent  of  a  single  fish. 
He  was  worst  of  all  on  flies,  as  he  had  a  stock  phrase, 

*  Yes,  yes,  capital,  the  best,'  to  the  great  undoing  of 
innocent,  information-seeking  strangers  who  had  rigged 
up  a  cast  effective  enough  perhaps  in  the  Hebrides  but 
perfectly  useless  on  the  Dee.     He  was  so  courteous, 

59 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  wished  so  well  to  everybody,  it  was  impossible  not 
to  think  he  might  extend  his  amenities  to  poachers. 
Peace  to  his  ashes,  for  he  is  long  dead  and  was  not  a 
teetotaller !  But  I  missed  him  very  much  one  April 
when  a  stalwart  gamekeeper-looking  man  came  along, 
who  asked  me  for  my  ticket  as  if  I  had  just  discovered 
the  river,  and  then  informed  me,  rather  more  than 
laconically,  that  my  white-whiskered  friend  was  no 
more. 

A  run  down  the  Dee  on  a  coracle  without  a  rod 
would  be  the  ideal  method  of  seeing  one  of  the  most 
delightful  stretches  of  river  scenery  known  to  me. 
But  armed  with  one,  unless  peradventure  the  trout 
proved  obdurate,  I  cannot  imagine  a  worse  one.  The 
exacting,  almost  feverish  nature  of  this  style  of  fishing 
excludes  the  romantic  and  the  picturesque  sufficiently 
from  consideration  for  the  purest  of  dry-fly  purists. 
My  sensations  on  stepping  ashore  in  the  evening  by 
Llantisilio  weir  after  a  good  day,  though  fraught  with 
all  the  satisfaction  of  meritorious  work  achieved,  were 
not  unlike  that  of  landing  after  a  long  sea  voyage,  in 
so  far  as  the  earth  and  all  that  is  thereon  appeared  to 
be  in  active  motion.  Otherwise  my  cheeks  would  be 
burning,  and  a  sense  of  having  been  all  day  endeavour- 
ing to  catch  up  something  slipping  always  away  was 
strong  upon  me.  There  are  blanks,  however,  as  well 
as  prizes  even  at  this  business. 

Now  the  Dee  is  what  is  known  as  an  east-wind  river, 
and  there  are  not,  so  far  as  I  know,  many  such  eccentric 
streams.  More  than  one  of  my  most  thrilling  hours 
have  been  spent  here  in  a  driving  snowstorm,  when  I 
have  seen  the  river  literally  alive  with  tumbling  fish, 

60 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

March  browns,  and  snowflakes  all  mixed  up  together. 
But  it  does  not  do  to  count  on  this.  One  day,  for 
instance,  at  the  end  of  March,  some  years  ago,  I  had 
arranged  with  Evan  Evans's  successor,  a  worthy  veteran 
of  more  note  in  the  local  angling  world  than  the  other, 
to  meet  me  at  Glyndyfrdwy  station  two  miles  below 
Carrog.  It  turned  out  in  truth  a  fearful  morning, 
with  a  bitter  north-east  wind  driving  before  it  heavy 
storms  of  snow.  But  knowing  the  Dee,  or  thinking 
I  did,  I  abandoned  the  cheerful  breakfast-parlour  of 
The  Grouse  with  a  hopeful  heart.  It  was  indeed  my 
only  chance  on  the  river  that  spring,  and  I  proceeded 
to  keep  the  tryst.  So  did  Griffith  with  his  coracle, 
and  when  we  met  our  eyes  were  so  blinded  with  cold 
snow  that  we  couldn't  see  each  other.  For  late  snows 
in  spring  and  early  snows  in  autumn  commend  me 
to  the  valley  of  the  upper  Dee  !  Griffith,  unlike  his 
predecessor,  being  a  Radical,  had  a  Manchester 
Guardian  with  him ;  I  being  a  Conservative  had 
brought  along  a  Liverpool  Courier,  these  two  papers 
dividing  North  Wales  between  them. 

So  we  took  off  our  coats  in  the  waiting-room  of  the 
little  station,  whose  enigmatic-seeming  name  upon  the 
platform  is  of  all  others  on  this  line  the  joy  and  wonder 
of  the  Cockney  tripper,  and  wrapped  ourselves  round 
and  round  in  the  leading  articles,  market  reports,  and 
advertisements  of  our  respective  organs.  Buttoning 
our  coats  over  all,  we  walked  to  the  neighbouring 
shore,  rigged  up  the  tackle,  and  launched  our  bark  on  to 
what  looked  like  a  waste  of  black  waters  surging  dimly 
through  a  thick  white  veil.  We  did  not  enjoy  our- 
selves, though  we  actually  caught  two  or  three  fish  in 

6i 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  first  reach.  But  the  cold  was  too  much  even  for 
Dee  trout,  and  the  wind  was  nearly  north  and  biting 
beyond  belief,  and  I  have  never  yet  heard  of  a  north- 
wind  river.  We  did  not  enjoy  ourselves  even  when 
the  air  cleared  of  snow,  but  we  were  virtually  com- 
mitted to  our  long  voyage,  as  you  cannot  retrace  your 
steps  in  a  coracle  on  the  Dee.  But  when,  after  three 
congealed  hours  with  some  half  a  dozen  indifferent 
fish  in  the  basket,  we  paused  for  lunch  at  Rhiawl  rocks 
beneath  the  foot  of  GameHn,  then  a  vast  sheet  of  snow, 
we  both  agreed  that  human  endurance  could  no  longer 
hold  out  against  the  icy  blast.  The  coracle  was  there- 
upon thrust  into  a  thicket  and  we  parted,  each  on  our 
long  weary  trudge,  Griffith  down  river  to  Llangollen, 
I  to  the  distant  fireside  of  The  Grouse  inn  and  home 
that  night,  where  I  was  confined  to  bed  for  the  next 
two  or  three  days  with  a  bad  chill  on  the  liver.  Griffith 
survived  that  arctic  voyage,  but  soon  afterwards  fell 
from  a  high  rock  by  the  river  and  broke  his  neck.  He 
tied  flies  commendably,  and  had  a  touching  faith  that 
with  any  other  brand  the  fisher  on  the  Dee  was  quite 
inadequately  equipped.  In  his  snug  parlour  at  Llan- 
gollen, with  its  low  oak-ribbed  ceiling,  seated  in  the 
deep-set  window  amid  his  furs  and  feathers,  his  paddle 
hung  over  the  chimney-piece,  his  old  wife  knitting 
by  the  fire,  and  the  grandfather  clock  ticking  away  their 
few  remaining  years,  he  made  the  centre  of  a  picture 
that  still  abides  with  me. 

From  a  high  cliff  in  that  famous  Shropshire  park 

of  the  last  chapter  where  the  pike  were  raided,  a  group 

of  bold  shadowy  heights  used  to  be  pointed  out  to 

visitors  as  the  vale  of  Llangollen,  name  of  meUifluous 

62 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

sound  and  vale  of  infinite  beauty.  I  remember  how 
melodiously  it  rung  in  my  boyish  ears,  stirring  its 
elementary  sense  of  the  music  and  cadence  of  words, 
blended  doubtless  with  one's  earliest  glimpse  into  the 
then  mysterious  mountains  of  North  Wales.  And 
my  kind  hostess  used  to  tell  me  of  the  two  famous 
old  ladies  whom  as  a  girl  she  had  known  intimately, 
and  indeed  it  was  only  the  other  day  I  was  reading 
some  old  letters  from  them  to  her.  A  mental 
picture  of  the  vale  of  Llangollen  fixed  itself  then 
and  there  in  my  mind,  as  such  things  do,  and  stuck 
in  it  till,  twenty  and  odd  years  later,  I  discovered 
that  the  original  infinitely  exceeded  the  vale  of  my 
dreams. 

The  Dee  roars  finely  over  the  great  rock  ledges 
above  Bishop  Trevor's  fifteenth-century  bridge  in  the 
heart  of  the  little  town.  The  encompassing  moun- 
tains and  the  high,  shining,  limestone  ridges  of  the 
Eglwyseg  and  the  woody  steeps,  the  bosky  glens  that 
come  down  from  this  side  and  from  that,  are  Nature's 
contribution  to  this  enchanting  vale.  And  of  memories 
what  a  crowd  for  those  who  happily  can  feel  them  in 
this  very  gateway  of  North  Wales.  Abbey  and  manor- 
house,  castle  and  battlefield,  the  footprints  of  kings 
and  princes,  monks  and  bards,  lie  everywhere.  And 
in  the  centre  of  the  high  encircling  hills,  perched  on 
a  sharp  green  sugar-loaf  many  hundred  feet  above  the 
town  and  river,  are  the  fang-like  splintered  ruins  of 
the  ancient  fortress  of  the  chieftains  of  Powys  and  their 
successors,  the  proud  race  of  Trevor  : — 

Relic  of  Icings,  wreck  of  forgotten  wars  ; 

To  the  winds  abandoned  and  the  prying  stars. 

63 


CLEAR  WATERS 

So  sang  Wordsworth,  though  more  susceptible,  per- 
haps, to  the  shepherd's  cot  than  to  relics  of  the  mailed 
fist.  Indeed  he  incurred,  it  is  said,  the  displeasure 
of  his  hostesses,  the  aristocratic  old  ladies  of  Plas- 
Newydd,  by  apostrophising  that  picturesque,  half- 
timbered  abode  as  *  a  lowly  cot  by  Deva's  banks.' 
Dinas  Bran  is  not  surpassed  for  pose  and  significance 
among  the  great  hill  fortresses  of  Wales,  though  the 
last  note  of  its  mediaeval  story  comes  to  us,  not  from 
an  epic  but  from  a  lovelorn  bard — a  man,  too,  of  fame 
and  note.  And  it  was  Myfanwy  Trevor,  the  beauty 
of  the  castle  in  the  fifteenth  century  who  broke  all 
hearts  upon  the  Dee,  that  invoked  the  stanzas  of  this 
famous  one  among  her  victims,  Gutyn  Owen  : — 

The  winds  around  thy  towers  may  rave, 

But  there  I  roam  thy  form  to  see. 
As  brilliant  as  the  dangerous  wave 

That  murmurs  o*er  Caswennon's  sea. 

My  song  shall  tell  the  world  how  bright 

Is  she  who  robs  my  soul  of  rest ; 
As  fair  her  face,  all  smiles  and  light, 

As  snow  new  fallen  on  Arran's  crest. 

So  much  for  a  sample  in  English  of  Gutyn's  im- 
passioned outpouring,  a  man  who,  though  lovelorn 
for  a  brief  hour,  admits  elsewhere  his  partiality  for  a 
good  horse  and  a  good  dinner,  and  smacks  his  poetic 
lips  over  the  hospitaHties  of  his  neighbours  the  monks. 
For  in  a  glen  at  the  mountain  foot  hard  by,  in  the  vale 
of  the  pillar  of  Eliseg,  are  the  stately  ruins  of  the  great 
abbey  of  Valle  Crucis,  beneath  whose  turf-clad,  roof- 
less aisles  lies   the  dust  of  the  Powys  princes,  who 

64 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

founded  it  and  strove  or  temporised  through  the  ages 
with  the  ever-pushing  Norman. 

I  have  said  a  good  deal  of  the  coracle  because  it  is 
a  strange  and  unknown  craft.  But  most  of  my  days 
and  hours  upon  the  Dee  have  been  expended  not  upon 
its  streams  but  battHng  a-foot  with  its  outrageously 
rugged  bottom.  The  trout  come  early  here  into 
condition  and  are  forward  in  taking  the  fly,  though 
more  capricious  than  most,  probably  from  the  amount 
of  bottom  feed  to  which  they  give  themselves  almost 
wholly  over  comparatively  early  in  the  season.  It  is 
admittedly  less  interesting  to  fish  a  big  river  across 
and  down  than  to  work  a  smaller  one  up  stream. 
There  is  unavoidably  a  good  deal  of  what  may  be 
called  the  salmon-fishing  method  about  it,  with  its 
inevitable  touch  of  monotony.  But  it  is  after  all  a 
change  from  the  other,  and  that  to  me  is  one  of  the 
charms  of  trouting.  Moreover  in  the  Glyndyfrdwy 
water,  over  which  we  have  just  been  in  fancy  drifting, 
there  is  very  little  of  that  regular  alternation  of 
stream  and  pool  which  distinguishes  the  Dee  as  it 
sweeps  down  from  Bala  through  the  green  vale  of 
Edeyrnion  to  Corwen  and  Carrog.  On  the  contrary, 
it  is  much  broken  and  impeded  by  rocks  and  ledges, 
and  forced  by  the  rugged  road  it  has  to  travel  into  a 
constant  variety  of  shifting  water  and  changing  depths. 
All  this  has  labelled  it  dangerous,  and  at  any  rate  it  is 
extremely  arduous  wading.  It  is  assuredly  not  every 
one's  water.  Wading  is  one  of  the  minor  arts  of  fish- 
ing, and  if  either  unused  to  it  or  physically  unhandy, 
it  is  beyond  doubt  in  such  waters  extremely  hazardous. 
Swimmer  or  no  swimmer,  if  you  slither  into  a  deep 
E  65 


CLEAR  WATERS 

pool  in  waders  and  brogues  you  are  more  likely  than 
not  to  remain  at  the  bottom  of  it.  It  is  bad  enough 
to  sit  suddenly  down  in  cold  April  water  up  to  the 
third  button  of  your  waistcoat,  though  only  pro- 
blematically injurious.  On  the  other  hand  you  are 
here  quite  certain  to  do  this  occasionally,  whereas  the 
other /<2ttAr  pas  you  would  probably  not  have  a  chance 
of  making  twice. 

Quite  recently  I  revisited  the  Dee  after  a  long 
lapse  of  years.  Of  course  it  was  a  trifle  melancholy ; 
such  things  always  are.  The  ripple  of  water  over 
stones  sings  many  tunes,  or  rather  touches  many  chords 
— the  sad,  the  soothing,  and  the  gay,  but  it  is  always 
terribly  reminiscent.  It  will  bring  back  your  boy- 
hood, if  you  have  always  been  a  fisherman,  with  a 
realism  that  nothing  else  can  approach.  It  will  recall 
the  forms,  the  faces,  and  the  voices  of  the  departed  with 
whom  it  has  (for  you)  been  once  associated  with  pain- 
ful clarity.  I  was  not  harrowed  quite  thus  far  upon 
the  Dee.  For  though  Evan,  Rhys,  and  Griffith  were 
among  the  shadows,  they  awakened  kindly  rather  than 
tearful  memories.  But  on  the  other  hand,  there 
are  more  important  things  you  may  forget,  as  I  dis- 
covered to  my  cost.  One  of  these  lapses  caused  merely 
disappointment,  the  other  gave  me  the  worst  ducking 
I  have  ever  had  in  the  Dee.  The  day  after  I  arrived 
in  the  first  week  of  April  a  cold  east  wind  blew  shriUy 
over  shrivelled  waters.  An  impossible  outlook  by  all 
ordinary  trouting  estimates,  into  which  last  I  had 
relapsed  by  constant  intercourse  with  other  and  more 
normal  streams  in  spring.  So  I  felt  annoyed  to  have 
thus  fallen  upon  such  evil  times.     But  I  went  out  of 

66 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

course  the  first  day,  and  moreover  killed,  to  my  sur- 
prise, quite  a  fair  basket.  Then  of  a  sudden  came  the 
freshet  that  everybody  said  the  river  so  badly  needed, 
and  after  its  abatement  balmy  zephyrs  blew  from  the 
south-west,  the  sun  gleamed  out,  and  the  joyous 
promise  of  spring  was  in  the  air.  Two  or  three  fisher- 
men arrived,  and  everybody,  even  I  who  should  have 
known  better,  joined  the  chorus  of  '  what  perfect 
weather  and  what  perfect  water.'  And  then  we  all 
cast  our  flies  through  these  perfect  days  on  the  perfect 
water,  and  regularly  returned  at  even  with  about  a 
quarter  of  an  average  basket,  to  spend  the  time  from 
dinner  till  bed  trying  to  solve  this  fiendish  mystery. 
At  least  they  did,  being  strangers.  For  myself,  I 
began  to  remember  the  mysterious  ways  of  the  sacred 
stream. 

It  was  in  the  prime  of  one  of  these  exasperating 
days,  and  I  was  pressing  along  a  fearfully  rugged 
bottom  under  a  thickly  wooded  shore,  merely  because 
I  had  always  done  so  in  years  past  in  order  to  fish  the 
top  of  a  favourite  pool.  Indeed  I  had  already  made 
a  cast  or  two  upon  it,  not  a  little  hampered,  as  always, 
by  over  -  spreading  boughs.  On  looking  across  to 
the  other  shore  it  suddenly  occurred  to  me  what  a 
fool  I  was.  For  over  yonder  were  nice,  open,  flat 
ledges  of  dry,  or  barely  covered  rock  along  the  bank, 
with  not  a  tree  near.  Surely,  thought  I,  the  river 
must  be  unfordable  in  the  shallows  just  above,  though 
it  didn't  look  it,  and  it  didn't  prove  so,  and  I  reached 
the  other  shore  with  ease.  I  then  marvelled  why  it 
was  I  had  always  laboured  that  pool  from  the  other 
bank.     The  ledges  on  this  one  sloped  very  gradually, 

67 


CLEAR  WATERS 

almost  imperceptibly,  into  quite  shallow  water,  whence 
I  could  obviously  command  much  of  the  great  seeth- 
ing pool.  So  I  proceeded  with  all  the  usual  circum- 
spection of  an  habitual  wader  into  the  shallow  water 
which  covered  the  smooth  floor.  In  a  moment  both 
heels  went  up  and  I  slithered  right  in.  Not  into  the 
pool,  thank  heaven,  but  into  about  three  feet  of  water 
at  its  edge.  And  even  as  I  went  down  the  memory  of 
the  past  flashed  through  my  brain,  and  before  I 
reached  a  sitting  position,  up  to  my  chin  this  time,  I 
knew  precisely  why  it  was  that  I  had  always  fished  the 
pool  from  the  other  shore  with  all  its  difficulties.  I 
am  no  geologist,  but  those  particular  slabs  had  a  coat 
of  glass  upon  them  that  the  most  recently  nailed  of 
brogues  could  not  possibly  have  gripped.  I  had 
known  this  well  in  former  days  from  some  only  less 
harrowing  experience,  but  the  fact  had  flown  some- 
how from  the  brain  cell  in  which  it  was  stored,  to  my 
complete  undoing.  As  I  was  scrambling  out,  a  chill 
and  miserable  object,  the  keeper  turned  up.  But  that 
was  of  no  use.  Neither  his  eloquent  sympathy  nor 
his  clothes  were  any  good  to  me.  Despite  his  forcible 
protestations  I  emptied  my  waders  of  water  and  went 
on  fishing,  though  I  suppose  I  should  have  known 
a  great  deal  better  at  my  time  of  life.  But  no  harm 
came  of  it,  and  I  always  have  had  a  stout  faith  in  the 
innocuous  qualities  of  trout-holding  water.  I  never 
caught  a  cold  in  my  life  through  getting  wet  out 
fishing. 

There  are  both  pike  (unfortunately)  as  well  as  gray- 
ling in  the  Dee  ;    also  salmon  and  sea-trout  in  their 
season.     Upon    the   former,  handsome    and    shapely 
68 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

specimens  of  their  unwelcome  kind,  though  they  be, 
owners  and  committees  wage  more  or  less  constant 
war.  The  grayling  here  does  not  pay  for  his  keep. 
He  will  take  your  trout-fly  occasionally  in  spring, 
when  he  is  of  course  out  of  condition,  but  for  some 
mysterious  reason  does  not  rise  after  the  fashion  of 
his  kind  in  autumn,  when  you  want  him  to.  Some 
worm  fishers  may,  for  aught  I  know,  take  toll  of  the 
Dee  grayling.  In  years  agone  I  remember  a  little 
Yorkshireman  who  used  to  spend  his  September 
holiday  in  their  pursuit,  wading  up  the  half  mile  straight 
of  smooth  gravelly  glide  that  follows  the  salmon  pool 
under  the  noble  old  bridge  at  Corwen.  He  had  not, 
I  think,  great  sport,  but  he  got  enough  to  keep  his 
family  by  his  own  account  on  a  regular  grayling  diet 
during  their  holiday,  which  must  have  sorely  cloyed 
them,  unless  they  all  shared  his  own  enthusiasm 
for  their  edible  qualities.  For  himself,  he  used  to  say 
he  devoured  them  *  roomp,  stoomp,  and  'ead.'  I  do 
not  go  that  far  with  him,  though  a  grayling  in  con- 
dition is  a  palatable  fish.  The  sea  trout  which 
jumped  the  weir  above  Llangollen  and  ran  up  in  great 
quantities  were  still  more  eccentric  and  were  scarcely 
ever  taken  with  a  rod.  The  salmon  came  up,  sparsely 
in  spring,  but  in  fair  numbers  with  the  autumn  floods, 
and  rose  reasonably  through  the  '  back  end,'  though 
not  often  in  very  good  condition.  Still,  salmon-fishing 
was  a  time-honoured  institution  on  the  Dee.  Every 
pool  patronised  by  the  king  of  fishes,  from  Corwen  to 
Llangollen,  had  its  name,  with  sundry  tall  stories  at- 
tached to  each.  Many  anglers  came,  and  for  the  most 
part  with  their  families,  who  led  the  simple  life  in 

69 


CLEAR  WATERS 

quaint  old  farmhouses  and  other  equally  primitive 
but  less  decorative  abodes  of  Welsh-speaking  natives. 
So  now,  of  course,  the  jerry-builder  has  been  at  work. 
Looking  up  from  the  old  bridge  of  Llansaintffraid, 
where  all  was  once  foliage  and  grey  roof,  there  is  now  the 
garish  and  exotic  glow  of  new  red  brick.  What  was 
formerly  a  small  village  with  an  inn,  a  shop,  a  post 
office,  a  schoolhouse,  a  church,  a  vicarage,  a  blacksmith 
and  a  bard  is  now  an  obvious  competitor  on  a  small 
scale  for  the  holiday  visitor  from  Lancashire  and  the 
Midlands.  Since  those  days,  however,  the  salmon- 
fishing  has  greatly  improved. 

But  Llansaintffraid,  otherwise  Carrog,  is  really  a 
place  of  high  renown,  concerning  which  something 
should  be  said.  For  myself  I  owe  more  than  I  can  tell 
to  the  inspiration  of  the  genius  loci  absorbed  during 
long  days  and  weeks  spent  there  or  thereabouts  upon 
the  Dee.  This  was  actually  the  ancestral  patrimony 
and  the  home — one  of  two,  that  is  to  say,  quite  near 
together — of  the  immortal  *  Damned  Glendower.'  His 
property,  inherited  through  varying  fortunes,  not  vital 
to  these  light  pages,  from  his  princely  ancestors  of 
Powys,  extended,  speaking  broadly,  from  Corwen  to 
Llangollen.  In  the  old  Welsh  divisions  it  constituted 
the  whole  commote  of  Glyndyfrdwy.  Indeed,  the 
great  patriot  and  chieftain's  true  and  actual  name, 
when  he  was  at  home  among  people  that  could  pro- 
nounce it,  was  Owain  of  Glyndyfrdwy.  This  was  too 
much  even  for  some  of  his  Welsh  friends  who  lived  in 
far  counties,  and  he  naturally  became  Glyndwr.  His 
English  enemies  and  contemporaries  ran,  of  course, 
hopelessly  amuck ;  the  nearest  they  ever  achieved 
70 


THE  WELSH   DEE 

when  striving  to  be  accurate  and  punctilious,  was 
Owen  de  Glendourdy.  Usually  they  anathematised 
him  in  their  military  dispatches  and  suchlike  simply 
as  *  Glindor.'  The  Welsh  frequently  omit  the  particle 
in  this  connection,  though  much  addicted  to  place- 
names,  even  to  that  of  humble  cottages,  owing,  of 
course,  to  the  tautology  of  their  patronymics.  Our 
English  Smith  may  emblazon  his  four-roomed  villa 
in  a  terrace  as  Chatsworth  or  Hurstmonceaux,  instead 
of  more  sensibly  giving  it  a  number.  But  no  one 
save  the  postman  pays  any  attention  to  such  aspira- 
tions. Certainly  the  town  does  not  speak  or  think  of 
him  as  '  Smith  of  Hurstmonceaux.'  But  in  Wales 
it  is  different.  Mrs.  Jones,  who  has  labelled  her 
modest  jerry-built  cot  Byrn-Hafod,  is  known  to  the 
full  extent  she  is  known  at  all  and  spoken  of  invari- 
ably as  Mrs.  Jones  Bryn-Hafod,  which  has  a  fine 
aristocratic  ring,  though  nothing  of  that  sort  is 
intended. 

Now,  a  little  way  below  Carrog,  a  cone-shaped 
tumulus  rises  high  above  the  river  bank  crowned  with 
half  a  dozen  ancient  ruddy-stemmed  Scotch  firs.  It 
looks  right  down  the  Dee,  and  is  so  cunningly  placed 
that,  in  spite  of  many  intervening  bends  of  the  valley 
and  of  folding  hills,  it  commands  full  view  of  the  high- 
perched  ruins  of  Dinas  Bran  seven  miles  away.  It  is 
doubtless  prehistoric,  and  its  signalling  advantages 
as  against  enemies  coming  up  the  Dee,  were  probably 
appreciated  by  its  prehistoric  raisers.  They  must 
have  been  invaluable,  however,  in  the  later  Anglo- 
Welsh  wars.  It  may  or  may  not  have  been  for  this 
that    Glyndwr's    mansion   was    planted    at    its    foot, 

71 


CLEAR  WATERS 

though  every  trace  of  it  but  the  upheaval  of  the  turf 
has  vanished.  Not  so,  however,  some  of  the  relics 
of  the  chieftain.  The  little  prison  house,  where  for 
long  periods  he  immured  certain  notable  captives,  is 
still  standing  in  the  village,  inhabited  when  I  last  saw 
it  by  an  aged  crone.  To  this  day  it  is  known  as 
cachardy  Owain  (Owen's  prison  house),  a  mere  cottage, 
and,  I  should  imagine,  one  of  the  oldest  in  the  kingdom. 
The  ancient  little  church  is  the  same  in  which  the 
hero  no  doubt  attended  Mass,  while  the  venerable 
farmhouse  beside  the  bridge  is  stoutly  held  by  tradition, 
a  thing  not  to  be  despised  among  these  long-memoried 
people,  to  have  been  the  site  at  any  rate  of  Glyndwr's 
farm  buildings.  An  oak  table  is  stiU  treasured  in  a 
neighbouring  homestead  as  a  relic  of  the  manor-house 
that  once  stood  here  above  the  Dee.  A  field  below 
is  still  known  as  the  *  Parliament  Field,'  where  the  men 
of  the  valley  presumably  met  their  leader  in  council. 
Not  far  to  the  north  is  the  strip  of  upland  which,  as 
a  cause  of  disputed  ownership  between  Owen  and 
Lord  Grey,  the  powerful  Anglo-Norman  baron  of  the 
vale  of  Clwyd,  led  to  the  armed  raid  which  made  a 
rebel  of  Glyndwr.  Hitherto  he  had  been  a  loyal 
subject  and  a  polished  gentleman  famihar  with  the 
English  Court.  This  little  boundary  dispute  pro- 
voked a  war  that  for  many  years  decimated  Wales, 
harried  the  border  counties,  and  brought  in  a  French 
army,  inured  Henry  v.  at  an  early  age,  pace  Shake- 
speare, to  arduous  campaigns  (he  destroyed  with  his 
own  hand  this  very  house  of  Owen's),  and  undoubtedly 
worried  the  king  his  father  into  a  premature  grave. 
All  this  may  seem  irrelevant.  But  it  was  fishing, 
72 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

day  after  day,  occasionally  for  salmon,  mostly  for  trout, 
beneath  the  fir-crowned  up-lifted  tumulus,  beneath 
which  the  wide  waters  of  the  mound  pool  surged  so 
temptingly,  that  filled  me  with  strange  longings  to 
gather  something  tangible  of  the  indomitable  warrior 
who  lived  at  its  foot  and  owned  the  ancestors  of  the 
trout  and  salmon  that  drew  me  thither.  It  seemed 
odd  that  the  Welsh  who  all  over  the  country  invoked 
the  hero  as  a  sort  of  patron  saint  knew  only  a  few  odd 
tags  and  legends  about  him ;  a  man,  too,  living  and 
laying  about  him  as  he  did  within  quite  measurable 
time. 

As  the  years  went  on,  and  the  old  tags  went  on, 
and  Welsh  patriots  of  the  political  and  pulpit  type 
grew  more  and  more  eloquent  of  the  past  greatness 
and  glories  of  Wales,  hidden  from  the  scoffing  Saxon, 
and  but  little  understood,  I  fear,  by  most  of  them- 
selves, the  real  Owen  still  remained  hardly  more  than 
a  shadow.  The  Glyndwr  of  Shakespeare  still  held  the 
field  !  He  was  on  every  local  patriot's  tongue,  but 
none  of  them  seemed  to  want  to  know  anything  further 
about  a  man  so  well  worth  knowing.  The  Dee  valley 
folk  were  only  certain  that  he  was  born  in  Corwen ; 
though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  born  by  chance  in 
Pembrokeshire,  his  mother  being  a  lady  of  South  Wales. 
The  mark  of  his  dagger,  at  any  rate,  flung  in  a  fit  of 
petulance  from  the  mountain-top  above,  was,  and 
still  is,  to  be  seen  by  the  faithful  on  the  wall  of 
Corwen  church.  Owen  was  almost  as  shadowy  a 
figure  in  the  Principality  as  Merlin,  though  as  real 
and  as  recent  a  one  as  Henry  v.  himself,  and 
paramount  in  Wales  for  years.     Every  county  had 

73 


CLEAR  WATERS 

its  little  trace  of  him,  some  fragment  of  story  or 
legend  to  tell.  But  they  were  for  the  most  part  quite 
disconnected. 

To  cut  short  my  story,  the  voice  of  the  Dee  sounded, 
or  seemed  to  sound,  the  name  of  its  hero  so  insistently 
in  my  ears,  the  romantic  beauty  of  the  vale  seemed 
to  harmonise  so  perfectly  with  the  romance  of  the 
great  chieftain's  elusive  personality,  that  after  about 
ten  years  the  impulse  to  rescue  him  from  something 
like  obscurity  had  grown  too  strong.  In  short,  as  I 
took  down  my  rod  one  evening  by  Glyndwr's  mount, 
I  determined  to  write  his  life,  if  sufficient  material 
could  be  found  for  it,  and  if  any  publisher  could  be 
induced  to  see  eye  to  eye  with  me.  Two  or  three 
eminent  firms,  who  were  inclined  to  look  kindly  on 
any  reasonable  suggestion  of  mine,  laughed  the  notion 
of  Owen  out  of  court  at  once.  I  was  then  advised  to 
approach  one  of  those  houses  where  many  editors  of  a 
less  distinguished  type  lurk  in  various  little  rooms 
while  the  roar  of  printing  machinery  turns  out  popular 
stuff  by  the  acre.  It  reminded  me  of  a  shoe  factory. 
I  was  shown  into  one  of  these  bare  little  rooms  de- 
dicated, as  I  was  told,  to  the  *  historical  department.' 
Here  a  strange-looking  wight  with  a  blue  chin  and 
attired  like  an  American  politician  seemed  but  meagrely 
equipped  with  a  small  table  and  a  bedroom  chair.  It 
was  not  in  the  least  like  such  editors'  rooms  as  I  was 
already  familiar  with.  When  I  broached  the  subject 
the  departmental  editor  sagely  stroked  his  blue  chin 
and  tapped  the  top  of  a  prematurely  bald  head  with 
a  puzzled  air.  *  Yes,'  said  he  very  sententiously,  and 
I  give  his  precise  words,  *  I  think  I  have  come  across 

74 


THE  WELSH  DEE 

the  gentleman's  name  in  some  of  my  researches.' 
This  was  enough  and  more  than  enough. 

Ultimately  the  late  Dr.  Evelyn  Abbot  of  Oxford, 
then  editing  for  Messrs.  Putnam  their  *  Heroes  of 
Nations '  series,  took  a  different,  and,  as  it  proved,  a 
shrewder  view  of  my  representations.  And  the 
Anglo-American  publishing  house  have  not,  I  am 
happy  to  say,  had  cause  to  regret  it.  In  forecasting  a 
popular  subject  the  publisher  is  generally  right  and 
the  enthusiastic  author  generally  wrong,  but  there 
are  exceptions,  and  this  was  one.  It  was  not  to  be 
expected,  however,  that  eminent  publishers  should 
know  very  much  about  the  mysterious  heart  of  Wales 
and  its  unproven  attitude  towards  the  biography  of  a 
national  hero.  Perhaps  I  didn't  know  a  very  great 
deal,  but  I  knew  more  than  they  did,  though  they 
would  not  believe  it.  I  did  misdoubt  however,  and 
naturally,  the  native  attitude  towards  the  intrusion 
of  a  Sassenach  into  this  holy  of  holies  though  they 
had  shirked  it  themselves.  But  in  this  I  did  an  in- 
justice to  a  generous  people,  for  nothing  could  have 
been  nicer  than  the  way  in  which  this  little  offering 
of  an  alien  to  their  national  literature  was  accepted 
by  scholars,  professors,  antiquarians,  and  schoolmasters, 
as  well  as  by  the  unlearned  masses.  Even  New 
Englanders  and  Pennsylvanians  were  persuaded  by 
Messrs.  Putnam  to  take  an  interest  in  Owen.  So  all 
was  well  and  more  than  well. 

And  all  this  came  about  from  fishing,  communicated, 
so  to  speak,  by  the  trout  of  Owen's  own  river,  and  the 
atmosphere  which,  thanks  no  doubt  to  the  magical 
personality  which  all  contemporary  England  believed 

75 


CLEAR  WATERS 

could  *  call  spirits  from  the  vasty  deep,'  broods  over 
the  spot.  As  for  myself,  it  engendered  an  interest  in 
everything  pertaining  to  the  romantic  part  of  what 
is  always  to  me  the  most  physically  delectable  of  the 
three  kingdoms  of  the  island  of  Britain.  The  Welsh, 
though  always  purposing,  have  never  achieved  a 
national  monument  to  the  strongest  and  most  mag- 
netic personality  of  all  their  ancient  history.^  Perhaps 
the  preachers  are  fearful  lest  its  martial  signifi- 
cance should  encourage  recruiting  in  His  Majesty's 
forces,  which  to  them  is  anathema.  The  soul  of  a 
soldier  they  believe  to  be  irretrievably  lost.  The  best 
monument  to  the  hero  after  all  is  the  group  of  aged 
fir-trees  on  the  high  tump  above  the  Dee  at  Carrog, 
bordering  both  the  Holyhead  road  and  the  Great 
Western  Railway,  where  the  impetuous  waters  of  the 
sacred  river  play  the  same  accompaniment,  no  doubt, 
as  they  piped  to  the  harp  of  the  Red  lolo,  Owen's  bard, 
as  he  sounded  his  patron's  praises  in  verse,  which  we 
may  read  to-day. 

1  Owen's  *  Parliament  House '  at  Machynlleth  has  been  totally  restored 
and  dedicated  to  his  memory. 


76 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 


HI 
SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

IF  you  touch  on  Wiltshire  fishing  nowadays  you 
are  expected  to  be  serious  !  Nature  has  linked 
the  county  with  Hampshire,  and  Hampshire 
fishing  in  literature  is  a  portentously  solemn  affair. 
To  crack  jokes  or  look  about  you  is  accounted,  I  take 
it,  as  mere  foolishness,  and  to  expect  an  entertaining 
aboriginal  upon  the  bank  would,  I  fancy,  be  futile. 
Unlike  those  of  the  north  and  west  the  rustics  of  the 
chalk  counties  know  little  or  nothing  of  trout-fishing, 
and  care  less,  though  they  hang  betimes  on  the  bridges 
and  watch  the  big  fish,  so  conspicuous  in  these  clear 
chalk  streams,  with  the  same  detached  interest  they 
might  exhibit  towards  pheasants  feeding  on  a  stubble. 
And  the  great  trout  ignore  them  with  a  complacent 
contempt  which  would  astonish  the  timid  quarter- 
pounder  of  a  Welsh  brook,  who  dashes  for  his  life  on 
any  attempt  at  such  familiarity.  If  you  didn't  know 
better  you  might  almost  assume  that  they  were  easy 
to  catch,  just  as  the  Cockney  scribe,  moved  to  satiric 
diatribes  at  the  sight  of  hand-reared  pheasants  and 
oblivious  to  the  rest  of  the  programme,  thinks  it  must 
be  child's  play  to  shoot  them. 

Wiltshire,  from  this  point  of  view,  means  the  upper 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Kennet,  the  Salisbury  Avon,  and  the  WyHe,  together 
with  some  tributaries  and  little  brooks  less  known 
to  fame.  Like  the  Hampshire  rivers  these  are  nowa- 
days, I  think,  mainly  fished  by  Londoners  and  aliens 
with  well-lined  pockets.  The  country  parson,  the 
doctor,  the  schoolmaster,  the  rural  tradesman,  the 
village  blacksmith  has  no  interest,  not  even  a  detached 
one,  in  trout,  and  it  is  altogether  another  country  in 
this  respect  from  North  and  West  Britain.  The  man 
who  cuts  the  weeds  or  attends  to  the  hatches  in  the 
water  meadows  and,  for  still  more  obvious  reasons,  the 
miller,  are  on  speaking  terms  with  the  fish,  but  have 
no  scientific  interest  in  a  craft  that  neither  they  nor 
their  belongings  have  ever  had  anything  to  do  with. 
There  are  here  no  aboriginal  fly-casters  or  fly-tiers,  or 
deadly  men  with  a  running  worm.  In  spite  of  its 
beautiful  streams  Wiltshire  might  almost  be  Norfolk 
or  Suffolk  so  far  as  the  local  atmosphere  is  concerned. 
These  things  are,  and  always  were,  for  *  the  gentles,' 
and  mainly  nowadays  gentles  from  London  and  other 
foreign  parts — well,  perhaps  not  altogether  on  the 
higher  parts  of  the  streams.  Local  interest  still  lingers 
about  the  less  coveted  reaches  :  the  parson,  the 
doctor,  a  big  farmer  or  two,  or  even  a  leading  trades- 
man, reserve  their  privileges,  cultivate  the  art  of  the 
dry  fly,  talk  fishing  betimes  in  the  market-place,  and 
give  a  Httle  local  flavour  to  the  business. 

I  hardly  know  what  happened  to  these  Wiltshire 
chalk  streams  generally  before  the  introduction  of  the 
dry-fly  method,  though  I  was  reared  on  one.  But  I 
do  know,  as  may  have  been  gathered  from  the  first 
chapter,  that  the  fish  iiad  no  sort  of  objection  to  a 

78 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

wet  fly — nay  nor  yet  to  two  of  them — fished  across  and 
down  when  the  wind  served  that  way.  It  makes  my 
blood  run  cold  to  think  that  I  have  landed  on  occasions, 
when  revisiting  the  scenes  of  youth,  four,  five,  or  even 
six  brace  of  good  fish  on  the  Mildenhall  water  of  the 
Kennet  in  that  dastard  fashion.  But  then  I  didn't 
know  any  better,  though  in  the  early  eighties  perhaps 
I  should  have.  About  the  same  time  a  great  friend  of 
mine,  who,  though  very  keen,  was  a  most  indifferent 
fisherman,  even  with  wet  fly,  killed  ten  brace  on  one 
occasion  by  the  same  reprehensible  method  in  the  half 
mile  of  water  just  below  the  town  of  Marlborough, 
and  that  meant  about  five-and-twenty  pounds  weight. 
He  never  showed  the  least  contrition  to  his  dying  day 
for  the  many  fish  he  had  taken  out  of  the  river  with 
two  wet  flies,  nor  could  I  ever  induce  him  to  see  eye 
to  eye  with  me  and  agree  that  both  of  us,  he  par- 
ticularly, as  a  perpetual  resident,  ought  to  look  back 
almost  with  shame  upon  those  many  pleasant  days 
among  the  water  meadows  below  Savernake  forest, 
some  of  which  we  had  enjoyed  together.  But  then  he 
never  consorted  with  dry-fly  men  or  even  read  them. 
They  hadn't  yet  got  up  so  high  as  Marlborough,  and 
it  was  impossible  for  me  at  second  hand  to  depict 
to  my  old  friend,  and  one  withal  so  much  my  senior, 
the  stony  eye  with  which  the  dry-fly  purist  in  his 
first  decades  of  exaltation  regarded  the  '  Chuck  and 
Chancer,'  and  the  opprobrious  names  he  called  him. 

He  has  got  steadily  purer  and  drier  ever  since,  to  be 
sure,  but  I  think  there  is  a  better  understanding  now 
between  the  two  schools.  It  was  upon  the  Avon,  a 
dozen  miles  away,  in  the  vale  of  Pewsey,  some  thirty 

79 


CLEAR  WATERS 

years  ago,  that  I  got  my  first  shock.  It  was  a  bright 
sunny  day,  I  well  remember,  and  just  before  the  first 
hatch  of  mayfly  was  due.  There  was  no  breeze 
stirring,  and,  after  I  had  fished  the  two  or  three  short 
interludes  of  quick  stream  unsuccessfully,  I  was  seated 
in  rather  hopeless  mood  beside  a  long  stretch  of  glassy 
water,  perhaps  eighteen  inches  deep,  and  disconsol- 
ately whistling  for  a  wind.  From  my  belated  standpoint 
the  day  was  assuming  a  more  and  more  impossible 
aspect,  when  all  at  once  a  strange  angler  broke  upon 
my  solitude. 

As  it  was  obvious  we  must  both  be  friends  of  the 
owner  we  naturally  forgathered.  I  was  magnani- 
mous enough  to  feel  sorry  for  him,  as  well  as  for  my- 
self, as  he  had  come  even  farther  than  I  had.  Indeed 
I  was  looking  at  the  spot  only  the  other  day ;  the 
white-railed  bridge  over  the  clear,  gliding,  little  river, 
the  tall  Lombardy  poplars  swaying  above  the  old 
water-mill,  a  bow  shot  to  the  left,  the  long  fir-tufted 
billows  of  Salisbury  Plain  cutting  the  southern  sky, 
the  bolder  ramparts  of  Oare  and  Martinsell  rising 
fainter  to  the  north.  But  the  stranger  didn't  seem 
at  all  depressed.  When  he  had  put  his  rod  together  he 
sat  down  beside  me,  lit  his  pipe,  and  remarked  that 
we  could  see  a  fish  rise  as  well  there  as  anywhere.  As 
we  could  see  the  bottom  for  fifty  yards,  the  remark 
struck  me  as  irrelevant,  as  was  the  prospect  of  a  rising 
fish  unlikely,  even  had  there  been  just  then  any  fly 
on  the  water. 

When  he  had  finished  his  pipe  and  no  sign  appeared, 
he  knocked  the  ashes  out  and  said  he  would  go  up  a 
bit  and  see  if  he  could  spot  a  fish  lying  in  this  looking- 
80 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

glass  stretch.  TKis  struck  me  as  a  mere  natural  history- 
expedition,  harmless  enough  in  itself  but  with  no 
bearing  at  all  on  the  business  we  were  out  for.  So 
off  he  went  stealthily  up  the  river  bank  for  about  a 
stone's-throw,  then  suddenly  stopped  and  beckoned 
to  me,  whereupon  I  proceeded,  also  stealthily,  towards 
him.  *  There  's  one,'  he  said,  '  just  to  the  left  of  that 
dark  bit  of  weed,'  pointing  to  a  mark  about  thirty  yards 
away.  '  Don't  you  see  him  ?  '  Now  I  should  have 
been  no  little  huffed  had  I  been  told  I  couldn't  see  a  fish 
in  the  water  as  well  as  the  average  angler,  but  like  the 
latter  I  had  never  gone  in  for  trout-stalking  as  an  art, 
and  I  had  to  confess  I  couldn't.  He  was  a  little  im- 
patient at  this,  so  after  a  few  seconds  I  basely  dis- 
sembled and  pretended  I  could.  '  Will  you  try  him 
or  shall  I  ?  '  I  didn't  at  the  moment  know  that  I  had 
one  of  the  best  fishermen  in  Wiltshire  at  my  elbow. 
But  if  I  had  known  him  to  be  the  worst,  I  should  have 
handed  him  over  the  job  with  pleasure.  Hunting 
up  your  fish  before  you  caught  them  seemed  utterly 
subversive  of  every  article  of  the  angler's  creed  as  I 
till  then  had  known  it.  Moreover  the  essay  in  that 
shallow,  transparent  water,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
length  of  line  required,  seemed  mere  foolishness.  I  had 
always  fancied  I  could  throw  an  ordinarily  decent  line, 
and  had  followed  in  wet-fly  fishing  the  '  fine  and  far 
off '  method  with  assiduity  and  conviction.  Un- 
doubtedly I  could  lay  out  as  long  a  one  as  is  ever 
requisite  in  quick  waters  or  on  a  chalk  stream  with  a 
ripple  of  a  wind,  or  again  I  could  pitch  one  handily 
between  boughs  or  under  roots  —  a  good  deal  of 
extra  schooling  in  North  American  forest  streams  had 
F  8i 


CLEAR  WATERS 

conduced  to  this.  But  my  new  friend's  performance 
was  a  revelation  and  his  floating  fly  was  another,  for  I 
must  ask  the  reader  again  to  remember  that  this  was 
thirty  years  ago.  Well,  he  got  that  fish,  and  then  he 
spotted  another  and  got  that,  and  then  another, 
and  secured  that  one  too.  We  had  then  reached  the 
mill,  where  we  had  our  lunch  and  a  pipe  and  some 
illuminating  conversation.  My  companion  now 
realised  my  benighted  condition,  and  I  learned  for  the 
first  time  that  things  had  been  happening  on  the  chalk 
streams,  though  they  hadn't  yet  struck  the  upper 
Kennet  on  which  for  three  or  four  days  in  the  year  I 
cast  my  two  wet  flies  with  tolerable  success  and  perfect 
satisfaction,  as  I  have  already  intimated. 

It  is  quite  certain  that  the  trout  there  at  any  rate 
had  not  yet  become  disabused  of  their  absurd  old- 
fashioned  notions.  I  don't  think  they  have  wholly 
abandoned  them  even  yet  in  spite  of  London  syndi- 
cates whose  members,  when  they  think  no  one  is 
looking,  often  fish  a  wet  fly  down  stream,  for  I  have 
myself  seen  them  at  it.  But  in  those  days,  before  the 
syndicates,  there  was  a  glorious  interlude,  after  the  old 
marquis,  alluded  to  in  the  first  chapter,  excellent 
man,  but  absent-minded  about  fishing,  was  laid  in  the 
vaults  of  his  fathers.  For  another  marquis  succeeded, 
who  somehow  realised,  good  soul  as  he  was,  that  three 
or  four  miles  of  as  excellent  trouting  as  there  was  in 
England  was  intended  by  providence  to  be  enjoyed. 
So  any  local  angler,  past  or  present,  of  which  there 
were  then  mighty  few,  was  treated  very  handsomely. 
With  another  regime  came  still  worse  times  in  agri- 
culture, and  with  them  the  alien  syndicates  or  their 
82 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

equivalents,  more  or  less  all  down  the  river,  and  the 
local  angler  mourned.  As  an  ex-local  I  enjoyed  that 
year,  among  others,  the  usual  liberty  upon  the  Kennet, 
with  the  further  privilege,  always  thoughtfully  ac- 
corded, of  taking  a  friend.  My  professor  of  the  Avon 
jumped  at  the  opportunity  of  joining  me  in  the  latter 
capacity,  as  was  very  natural,  and  we  had  another 
day  together  on  the  Mildenhall  water. 

Now  every  traveller  on  the  Bath  road  must  know 
the  hill-top  where,  emerging  from  Savernake  forest, 
you  first  catch  sight  of  Marlborough  lying  below,  at 
the  foot  of  a  mile-long  steady  slope,  down  which  the 
coach-drivers  of  former  days  used  betimes  to  terrify 
their  fares  by  making  up  a  lost  five  minutes.  The 
sight  of  the  old  town  with  its  red  roofs,  its  two 
hoary  church  towers,  and  the  beautiful  spire  of  the 
school  chapel  in  the  background,  lying  snugly  in  its 
green  trough  with  the  waste  of  downland  spreading 
into  space  behind,  is  the  best  thing  yet  in  all  the 
seventy-seven  miles  from  London.  For  you  sweep 
just  here  out  of  the  cramped  country,  out  of  the 
stuffy  home  counties  into  the  glorious  downland  that 
roUs  away  towards  the  glorious  west,  the  noble  beeches 
of  Savernake  making  a  fitting  portal  for  such  an 
advent.  Glistening  brightly  out  of  the  old  town  as 
you  cross  the  rubicon  and  descend  the  hill  comes  the 
Kennet,  coiling  through  the  water  meadows  and 
slipping  down  from  mill  to  mill  by  Polton,  Mildenhall, 
Stitchcombe,  and  Axford  on  its  way  to  Ramsbury  and 
Littlecote.  Here  my  new  friend,  the  professor,  had 
a  further  opportunity  of  demonstrating  this  new  art 
to  my  discomfiture,  and  incidentally  to  my  enlighten- 

83 


CLEAR  WATERS 

ment.  For  it  was  another  warm  and  windless  day. 
The  quick  glides  where  the  fish  sometimes  rose  well 
to  the  wet  fly  and  even  the  swirling  tails  of  the  lashers 
were  irresponsive.  The  still  waters  were  like  glass 
unrufiled  by  the  faintest  puff.  So  the  dry-fly  expert 
had  all  the  fun  and  I,  not  altogether  unprofitably,  a 
good  deal  of  looking  on. 

They  are  better  and  larger  trout,  too,  than  those 
of  the  upper  Avon,  which  are  white  of  flesh  and  far 
less  palatable,  in  spite  of  a  fair  supply  of  mayfly,  none 
of  which  hatch  out  higher  up  the  Kennet  than  Rams- 
bury.  But  the  Kennet  trout,  mostly  of  a  pound  or 
a  bit  over — those  that  rise,  that  is  to  say,  for  there 
are  monsters  in  the  water — are  firm  and  usually  pink- 
fleshed,  and  for  chalk-stream  trout  the  best  of  eating. 
In  the  mayfly  season  lower  down,  at  Ramsbury, 
Littlecote,  and  on  into  Berkshire  by  Hungerford 
and  Kintbury  bigger  fish  than  pounders,  of  course, 
are  taken.  In  the  commoners'  water  at  Hungerford, 
which,  on  account  of  their  municipal  privileges,  is  alone 
in  the  chalk  counties,  so  far  as  I  know,  a  town  of  fisher- 
men, huge  trout  have  been  taken  on  a  minnow  and 
even  fly  within  my  memory.  Doubtless  they  are 
taken  still.  Ten  and  eleven-pounders  were  at  least 
annual  events.  I  believe,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  the 
Kennet  is  recognised  as  having  the  largest  record  of 
heavy  trout  in  the  kingdom.  But  we  didn't  catch 
these  sockdolagers  either  with  a  sedge  or  Wickham 
dry,  or  an  alder  and  blue  dun  wet,  about  Marlborough 
— not  much  !  The  miller's  net  mentioned  in  a  previous 
chapter  used  to  scoop  out  an  occasional  whale  or  two 
of  five  or  six  pounds,  and  no  doubt  a  live  minnow, 

84 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

had  it  been  a  permissible  or  popular  bait  in  the  upper 
waters,  would  have  accounted  for  some  surprising  fish. 
The  little  river  Og,  which  runs  into  the  Kennet  just 
below  Marlborough  and,  three  or  four  miles  up,  shrivels 
to  a  winter  bourne,  dry  as  a  board  in  summer-time, 
while  its  lower  streams  are  stiff  with  weed,  the  old 
keeper  used  to  declare  held  even  larger  fish  than  the 
Kennet. 

I  never  fished  a  Wiltshire  stream  again  after  that 
day  with  a  wet  fly,  though  my  days  upon  them,  it 
should  be  said,  have  been  only  occasional  ones.  This 
was  not  from  any  particular  enthusiasm  or  predilection 
for  the  dry  fly  as  a  cult,  for  the  rough  water  streams 
and  everything  connected  with  them  bind  me  to  them 
with  an  infinitely  stronger  tie.  You  can  fish  parts  of 
these  last,  to  be  sure,  if  you  like,  with  a  dry  fly ;  but 
there  is  no  great  excess  of  art  and  no  special  difficulty 
in  this  case,  and  usually  you  would  not  kill  so  many 
fish  as  with  two  wet  flies  requiring  quite  as  much  skill 
of  a  rather  different  kind.  But  in  the  comparatively 
still  and  more  monotonous  surface  of  the  chalk  stream 
it  is  quite  different.  For  myself,  I  surrendered  in  a 
single  day.  It  seemed  obvious  that  for  waters  like 
this  the  new  style — though  I  believe  on  the  Test  it  had 
been  going  some  time — was  the  right  thing.  There 
really  was  something  of  the  '  chuck  and  chance  it ' 
reproach  attached  to  the  old  wet-fly  fishing  of  these 
chalk  streams.  The  phrase,  it  would  be  charitable 
to  think,  was  coined  by  persons  who  knew  no  others, 
and  then  echoed  by  a  thousand  fools  who  knew  very 
little  of  any  rivers,  wet  or  dry,  and  applied  it  in- 
discriminately.    Nor  had  there  been,  I  am  sure,  any- 

85 


CLEAR  WATERS 

thing  like  the  same  amount  of  fishing  on  the  chalk 
streams  in  the  old  wet-fly  days,  and  what  there  had 
been  was,  I  fancy,  mainly  local. 

At  any  rate  whenever  on  a  Wiltshire  stream  after 
this  I  always  followed  the  dry  fly  scrupulously  and  to 
the  best  of  my  very  moderate  ability.  Sometimes, 
to  be  sure,  if  I  couldn't  beguile  a  rising  fish  with  the 
orthodox  presentation  I  have  given  him  a  wet  fly  and 
got  him.  But  that  was  the  fish's  look  out.  He  was 
supposed  to  be  in  a  sufficiently  advanced  stage  of 
education  as  to  be  above  taking  a  wet  fly,  so  it  was 
high  time  he  was  superannuated.  Once,  on  an  odd 
day  in  September,  kindly  conceded  me  on  the  sacred 
waters  of  the  Wilton  Club,  upon  the  Wylie,  I  killed, 
I  blush  to  say,  four  rising  graylings,  one  after  the  other, 
with  a  wet  fly,  though  not  until  in  each  case  I  had 
presented  it  dry  and  tastily  at  least  a  score  of  times  to 
each  without  avail.  This  preliminary  was  only  due, 
as  a  mere  matter  of  common  courtesy,  to  a  corporation 
whose  privileges  I  was  enjoying.  For  the  man  who 
would  dehberately  fish  the  Wylie  Club  water  with 
a  wet  fly  would  probably  shoot  a  fox.  I  have  read 
of  such  men  in  what  may  be  called  the  criminal 
columns  of  the  sporting  papers,  and  felt  glad  that  I 
did  not  stand  in  their  shoes.  The  four  graylings 
weighed  nearly  seven  pounds  and  were  far  the  largest 
sequence  of  that  graceful  fish  that  have  ever  fallen  to 
my  rod.  This,  no  doubt,  because  I  have  scarcely 
ever  fished  for  chalk-stream  grayling,  and  the  other 
sort  with  which  I  am  on  easy  terms  don't  weigh  up 
like  that. 

But  in  regard  to  fish  refusing  a  quite  nicely  cooked 
86 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

fly  and  then  taking  it  wet,  the  biggest  I  ever  killed 
upon  the  upper  Kennet  came  to  grass  that  way,  and 
through  no  fault  whatever  of  mine,  but  purely  by 
reason  of  its  own  incredible,  inconceivable  stupidity. 
I  remarked  in  my  first  chapter  that  all  my  fish  adven- 
tures occurred  in  early  youth  and  that  I  never  had 
another,  but  I  had  forgotten  this  one.  The  others 
appealed  straight  to  what  might  be  called  the  gallery, 
sisters,  cousins,  aunts — anybody.  There  were  not  six 
people  in  Marlborough,  however,  to  whom  the  last 
adventure  would  have  had  any  meaning  whatsoever 
beyond  the  not  very  startling  fact  that  I  had  an  extra 
good  fish  in  my  basket.  It  was  the  largest,  to  be  sure, 
that  had  ever  been  killed  above  the  town  with  fly.  But 
then  being  only  two  pounds  and  a  quarter,  and  many 
much  bigger  ones  than  that  swimming  habitually 
about  in  the  Kennet,  this  would  be  a  mere  detail, 
interesting  only  to  the  local  craftsman.  I  did  not, 
I  blush  to  say,  disclose  to  any  of  the  half-dozen  how 
I  caught  it  except  that  it  was  upon  a  small  Wickham, 
which  was  true  and  of  no  significance  whatever,  for, 
as  this  was  only  half  a  dozen  years  ago,  dry  fly  had  long 
been  there  the  order  of  the  day.  I  merely  sent  the 
fish  to  my  old  friend,  the  owner  of  the  water,  with 
my  love,  as  it  was  in  beautiful  condition.  I  was  torn, 
in  fact,  between  reluctance  to  spoil  gratuitously  my 
little  triumph  and  my  desire  to  unfold  a  strange  tale. 
So  I  compromised  by  enjoying  the  first  at  the  moment 
and  then  unfolding  the  details  a  year  later.  And  this 
is  what  happened,  for  the  benefit  more  particularly 
of  dry-fly,  chalk- stream  readers. 

Now  there  are  only  about  two  miles  of  fishing  above 

87 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Marlborough,  and  then  the  river,  as  so  frequently 
happens  in  the  higher  waters  of  chalk  streams,  begins 
to  squander  itself  in  shallow,  gravelly  trickles  among 
cresses  and  subaqueous  vegetation,  though  for  some 
distance  farther  there  are  occasional  small  hatch-holes 
where  monsters  lurk  ready  and  anxious,  so  I  have  been 
told  by  a  friend  who  has  tried  it,  to  take  a  natural 
minnow  directly  it  touches  the  water.  But  there  are 
only  two  miles,  at  the  most,  of  fly  water  above  the 
town,  and  in  it  the  surface-feeding  fish  run  smaller 
and  are  less  numerous  than  in  the  larger  waters  and 
greater  preserves  below.  The  upper  half  of  this 
stretch,  however,  the  very  topmost  fishable  bit  of  the 
river  in  short,  had  afforded  me  many  a  pleasant  hour 
when  a  lad  in  the  bad,  old,  wet-fly  days,  and  a  good 
many  brace  of  three-quarter-pounders  picked  up  in 
odd  hours.  On  the  occasion  in  question  I  had  not  trod 
these  particular  banks  with  a  rod  for  nearly  thirty 
years.  A  generation  of  fly-fishers  and  dry  ones,  of  course, 
had  grown  up  even  on  this  little  stretch  of  water  since 
then.  Every  one  who  has  been  to  Marlborough  knows 
it  well,  that  reach  along  the  foot  of  the  old  churchyard 
at  Preshute,  past  the  foot  of  Preshute  house  garden, 
under  the  arched  bridge,  and  for  a  couple  of  meadows 
beyond  towards  Manton.  It  was  a  lovely  June  after- 
noon, and  I  had  gone  down  about  tea-time,  and  in 
those  half-pleasant,  half-painful  memories  that  the 
waters  of  youth  so  vividly  stimulate  had  spent  a  quiet 
hour  or  two  on  the  once  familiar  stretches,  but  had 
only  basketed  one  just  sizeable  fish,  as  there  was  practi- 
cally no  rise  on.  There  was  still,  however,  the  pet 
spot  of  my  wet-fly  youth  remaining,  and  that  was 
88 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

where  the  current,  after  gliding  under  the  brick  bridge 
of  the  drive  up  to  Preshute  house,  runs  with  a  bit  of 
Hfe  in  it  against  the  low  walled-up  end  of  the  garden, 
where  two  small  bushes,  the  very  same  ones  as  of  old, 
no  whit  altered,  sprout  out  of  the  masonry  and  hang 
slightly  over  the  water.  This  had  been  almost  the 
only  fishable  spot,  except  the  hatch-hole,  in  the  wet-fly 
period  when  the  breeze  dropped  on  the  whole  half 
mile  of  otherwise  still  water.  It  was  a  rare  place  in 
any  case  for  fish  to  lie,  and  there  was  at  least  one 
average-sized  trout  there  on  this  occasion. 

Whether  I  could  merely  spot  him  or  whether  he 
rose  I  forget,  but  I  tried  him  long  and  patiently, 
though  to  no  purpose,  with  a  small  sedge  from  the 
meadow  bank  opposite.  It  was  simple  fishing  and  easily 
covered,  the  only  drawback,  as  of  old,  being  the  bridge 
immediately  above,  Hable  at  any  minute  to  be  occupied 
by  passing  schoolboys,  for  Preshute  is  the  most  out- 
lying of  the  school  boarding-houses,  and  if  a  fisherman 
chanced  to  be  at  work,  a  natural  curiosity  pulled  every 
wayfarer  up  short  at  the  parapet,  and  away  down 
stream  went  the  trout  into  the  weeds  below.  A  bevy 
of  boys  did  me  this  dis-service  now,  and  if  only  my 
coy  three-quarter-pounder  had  sailed  down  I  should 
merely  have  reeled  up  and  gone  home  without  annoy- 
ance, as  time  and  a  dinner  engagement  pressed.  But 
to  my  astonishment  a  great  big  fish,  very  big  indeed 
to  be  waiting  there  in  that  eminently  surface-feeding 
spot,  went  down  with  him.  My  pulse  beat  a  bit 
faster  as  I  felt  I  had  been  fishing  over  such  a  prize,  for 
I  had  searched  with  my  fly  the  whole  ten  yards  or  so 
of  brisk  water  under  the  wall  on  spec.     I  guessed, 

89 


CLEAR  WATERS 

however,  he  would  be  back  in  five  minutes,  for  the  old 
custom  of  the  fish  below  that  bridge  if  it  were  left  in 
peace  came  back  to  me  as  an  open  book.  So  I  sat 
down,  changed  my  fly  for  a  small  Wickham  and  waited, 
and  sure  enough  back  he  came  into  the  feeding  spot, 
though  I  could  not  see  exactly  where  he  took  up  his  posi- 
tion. It  wasn't  very  promising  under  the  circumstances, 
nor  did  it  prove  so,  for  I  tried  the  little  run  over  again 
to  the  best  of  my  skill  and  care  without  response,  and 
then  as  the  school  and  town  clocks  across  the  water 
meadows  were  ringing  out  for  me,  urgent  notes,  I 
proceeded  to  wind  up  without  more  ado.  It  was 
now  this  strange  thing  happened.  For  as  my  Wick- 
ham came  jerking  up  out  of  the  three-foot  water  into 
the  clear  shallow  of  no  depth  at  all  which  sloped  up 
towards  my  feet  I  beheld  to  my  astonishment  my 
lusty  friend  heading  straight  for  me.  For  a  brief 
moment  I  failed  to  reahse  that  he  could  be  making 
such  an  inconceivable  ass  of  himself,  as  events  proved, 
and  merely  thought  it  strange  that  an  unusually  large 
fish  should  come  out  into  shallow,  gin-clear  water 
on  a  sandy  bottom  merely  to  pay  his  respects.  All 
this,  as  the  noveUsts  say,  occurred  in  less  time  than 
it  takes  to  tell.  But  the  incredible  truth  struck  me 
somehow  that  he  was  actually  following  my  fly,  of 
which  the  very  hook  and  tinsel  was  plain  enough  even 
to  my  eye,  so  I  trailed  it  slowly  towards  me  in  six 
inches  of  shallow  water,  till  looking  me  practically 
in  the  face,  not  four  yards  from  where  I  stood,  I 
saw  the  white  of  my  friend's  gills  as  his  mouth 
opened.  As  he  closed  it  I  struck,  and  though  I 
could  scarcely  credit  my  senses,  so  impossible  seemed 
90 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

the  whole  business,  I  had  him  firm.  At  the  same 
moment  a  score  of  flannelled  cricketers  homeward- 
bound  swarmed  on  to  the  bridge.  I  was  only  just  in 
time ! 

And  then  ensued  a  great  fight,  the  only  really  ex- 
hilarating contest  I  ever  remember  to  have  had  with 
a  chalk-stream  fish.  There  were  hopeless  banks  of 
weeds — indeed  the  river  was  a  solid  mass  of  them 
just  below  the  open  run,  and  the  cast  was  of  drawn 
gut.  Again  and  again  the  fish  dashed  for  the  shelter, 
and  as  often  it  seemed  a  very  touch-and-go  whether 
my  cast  would  hold.  The  gathering  company  upon 
the  bridge,  lusty  sons  perhaps,  some  of  them,  of  my 
ancient  schoolfellows,  manifested  great  excitement. 
Some  of  them  jumped  into  the  meadow,  which  was 
strictly  out  of  bounds,  and  at  least  three  of  them 
wanted  to  net  the  fish  for  me  when  he  was  at  last 
beaten.  Not  knowing  the  state  of  their  temperature 
or  the  extent  of  their  fish-lore  I  took  no  such  risks. 
Most  of  us  have  seen  an  excited  schoolboy  as  well  as 
an  unsophisticated  grown-up  making  perilous  play 
with  a  landing-net.  The  trout  scaled,  as  already 
noted,  just  two  pounds  and  a  quarter  when  I  got 
home.  He  was  a  beautiful  thick  Kennet  fish,  in  the 
very  pink  of  condition,  and  my  old  friend  the  doctor, 
and  owner  of  the  water,  said  he  cut  as  red  as  a  salmon 
on  the  table.  But  I  never  could  have  believed  it  to 
be  within  the  wildest  bounds  of  possibility  that  such 
a  trout,  or  indeed  any  trout,  could  slowly  and  de- 
liberately make  such  an  astounding  fool  of  himself. 
And  he  was  the  largest,  too,  ever  taken  on  a  fly  above 
Marlborough ! 

91 


CLEAR  WATERS 

In  the  crack  waters  of  the  chalk  streams  the  weeds 
are  of  course  kept  regularly  cut,  and  as  some  think, 
to  the  detriment  of  the  breeding  haunts  of  the  natural 
fly.  It  seems  tolerably  certain  that  on  some  much- 
pampered  waters  the  insect  supply  has  declined,  and 
indeed  new  stock  has  been  actually  introduced.  The 
pedigree  of  the  trout  themselves  in  some  of  those 
rivers  must  by  this  time  be  pretty  intricate.  It 
would  puzzle  a  Wylie  fish,  I  imagine,  to  locate  his 
grandparents,  and  we  may  fairly  assume  that  exotic 
trout  may  be  seen  on  many  club  waters  rising  at  im- 
ported flies.  When  the  weeds  have  got  ahead  and 
form  big  patches  about  the  water,  they  offer  great 
possibilities  to  the  fighting  fish  if  he  can  get  into  them. 
With  only  one  fly,  as  in  dry-fly  fishing,  the  angler  has 
reasonable  possibilities  of  getting  him  out.  In  wet- 
fly  fishing  with  two  or  three  hooks,  as  happens  occasion- 
ally in  lakes,  one's  only  chance  is  to  haul  the  kicking 
captive  willy-nilly,  and  chance  a  rupture,  over  the 
top  of  the  bed  and  net  him  instantly  and  anyhow, 
without  regard  to  the  proprieties.  A  chalk-stream 
fish  who  thoroughly  understands  weeds,  however, 
has  a  useful  trick  of  holding  on  to  the  stalks  below 
water  with  the  grip  of  his  teeth,  and  then  you  may 
haul  away  till  you  break,  or  he  gets  tired  of  it,  or  rubs 
the  fly  out. 

A  day  or  two  after  the  adventure  at  Preshute  bridge 
I  was  mayfly-fishing  on  the  Avon  at  Chisenbury, 
just  where  that  pretty  little  river  enters  the  Plain. 
There  were  some  thick  patches  of  weeds  about,  and 
a  trout  hooked  at  the  edge  of  one  of  them  was  a  little 
too  quick  for  me,  and  fixed  himself  down  in  the  very 
92 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

heart  of  it.  After  the  usual  amount  of  pressure, 
without  any  result,  and  not  knowing  whether  the  fish 
was  still  on  it  or  I  was  merely  fast  in  the  weeds,  I 
thought  I  would  at  least  save  my  cast,  and  at  the  same 
time  quench  my  thirst,  for  the  fish  were  not  doing 
much,  and  it  was  a  very  hot  day.  So  I  laid  down 
my  rod  and  walked  to  the  village,  nearly  half  a  mile 
away,  where  I  secured  a  long  bean-pole  from  a  cottage 
garden.  On  my  return  I  raised  my  rod  with  one 
hand  and  probed  the  depths  of  the  weeds  with  the 
other.  Whereupon,  to  my  surprise,  out  came  the 
fish  on  to  the  top  of  the  bed,  when  I  gave  him  the 
shortest  shrift  and  had  him  in  the  net  before  he  had 
time  to  take  in  the  situation. 

That  is  a  delightful  bit  of  Arcady  along  the  riverside 
below  Upavon,  with  its  old  church  tower,  and  between 
the  green  heights  of  Casterly  Camp  and  Chisenbury 
Ring.  Through  clean,  narrow  strips  of  meadow  the 
stream  speeds  ever  onward,  rushing  over  hatches  into 
swirling  pools,  swishing  under  the  rambling  boughs 
of  bordering  copses,  scooping  out  deep  holes  at  sharp 
corners,  and  purling  away  over  gravel  to  lash  the  roots 
of  oak  or  willow  at  yet  another  elbow,  till  it  seems 
suddenly  to  remember  that  it  is  a  dry-fly  river,  not 
a  mountain  brook,  and  steadying  down,  rolls  brim- 
ming and  placid  between  pollard  willows  to  the  mill- 
dam  at  Chisenbury,  which  is  the  material  cause  of  its 
return  to  sobriety.  Here  on  the  bank  stands  the 
ancient  mill-house,  and  beyond  lush  paddocks  and 
patches  of  waist-deep  burdock  rise  stately  elms  beneath 
whose  shade  stands  the  fine  old  manor-house  of  that 
Wiltshire    Grove    who    took    part    in    the   Wiltshire 

93 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Penruddocks'  rising  against  Cromwell,  and  lost  his 
head. 

But  enough  of  this.  The  booming  of  cannon, 
the  rumble  of  commissariat  wagons,  the  cracking  of 
musketry,  and  rush  of  squadrons  is  now  not  far  away. 
Thus  far  down  the  valley  and  a  little  farther  peace 
still  reigns.  But  away  beyond,  from  the  great  church 
of  Enford  to  the  woods  of  Netheravon,  and  from 
Netheravon  by  Durrington  and  Figheldean  to  Ames- 
bury  the  stir  of  martial  things  is  always  in  the  air,  and 
in  the  campaigning  season  it  seems  odd  to  some  of  us 
to  read  in  the  newspapers  of  two  great  armies  fighting 
along  the  whole  line  of  the  quiet,  secluded,  little  trout 
stream  we  used  to  know  so  well.  Sometimes  the 
designers  of  the  great  autumnal  war-game  lay  it  down 
that  the  Avon  is  to  stand  for  a  sea-coast  which  is  to 
be  defended  from  an  invading  enemy,  and  we  find  in 
our  morning  papers  a  large-scale  map  of  its  course,  with 
all  its  mills  and  villages  and  little  bridges  set  forth 
in  capitals  as  strategic  points  upon  which  the  great 
British  public  are  requested  to  fix  its  critical  eye.  Of 
a  truth  times  are  changed  on  the  Avon  and  on  the 
Plain! 

The  prettiest  bit  of  the  Kennet,  to  my  thinking,  is 
where  with  quickened  pace  it  runs  over  gravelly 
bottoms  through  Ramsbury  Chase,  hard  by  the  lake 
below  the  manor-house,  which  its  waters  feed,  and 
where  trout  of  fabulous  size  disport  themselves.  And 
again,  below  where  it  steals  on  to  that  haunted  Little- 
cote,  under  whose  Tudor  gables  wild  Darrel  is  credited 
by  local  legend  with  such  heinous  deeds,  and  which 
with  much  greater  certainty  sheltered  Dutch  William 

94 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

while  opening  negotiations  with  his  royal  and  fatuous 
father-in-law.  Littlecote,  like  Ramsbury,  was  famous 
for  large  fish.  There  used  to  be  a  stew  there  in  the 
days  of  the  Popham  prosperity,  wherein  a  certain 
number  of  large  trout  were  kept  in  what  might  be 
termed  honourable  captivity,  and  encouraged  to 
laziness  and  good  cheer.  They  were  lifted  out  occa- 
sionally and  placed  upon  the  scales.  A  well-known 
local  sportsman  and  raconteur  used  to  maintain  that 
an  actual  spirit  of  rivalry  grew  up  among  these  pam- 
pered captives.  One  old  Triton,  regarding  whose 
reputed  weight  I  dare  not  trust  my  memory,  grew 
so  pleased  with  himself,  according  to  the  aforesaid 
sportsman,  that  he  used  to  come  regularly  up  to  the 
edge  of  the  stew  to  be  weighed,  and  lie  like  a  lamb 
on  the  scale.  And  when  the  tray  went  down  in  evi- 
dence of  his  increased  well-being,  which  it  generally 
did,  he  would  flap  his  tail  twice  in  great  exultation. 
Much,  however,  must  be  forgiven  to  men  who  live  on 
the  banks  of  streams  like  this,  where  the  fish  do  really 
achieve  so  large  a  size  that  strangers  from  far  counties 
are  apt  to  be  incredulous,  and  thus  put  local  patriots 
on  their  mettle.  I  remember  not  so  very  long  ago  an 
amusing  encounter  with  such  a  man  from  a  very  far 
county,  who  proved  a  luminous  example  of  how  little 
one  half  of  the  trouting  world  know  how  the  other 
half  lives,  to  paraphrase  a  common  aphorism. 

It  was  on  a  bright  summer  morning,  and  I  was 
travelling  by  train  up  the  Wylie  valley  to  fish  a  friend's 
water  at  Codford.  The  only  other  occupant  of  the 
carriage  was  a  rosy-faced  commercial  gentleman  in 
black  broadcloth   and  a   top-hat.     By   the   time   the 

95 


CLEAR  WATERS 

train  draws  towards  Codford  the  Wylie  has  shrunk, 
it  must  be  confessed,  to  extremely  modest  dimensions. 
The  obvious  nature  of  my  intentions  seemed  to  rouse 
the  commercial  gent,  who  had  been  apparently  taking 
stock  of  the  little  river  from  the  corner  seat,  to  satiric 
utterance :  '  We  shouldn't,'  said  he,  with  rather  a 
truculent  note  and  an  accent  that  located  him  pre- 
cisely, *  call  that  much  of  a  river  where  I  come  from.' 
*  There  are  some  fine  fishermen  up  there,  I  can  tell 
you,'  he  continued,  *  and  the  rivers  are  something 
like.'  He  then  spoke  eloquently  of  the  Wear  and  the 
Tees,  both  of  which  I  happened  to  know,  and  returned 
again  to  quite  uncalled-for  strictures  on  the  pleasant 
little  stream  below  us.  By  this  display  of  untutored 
complacency  I  was  rather  moved  to  take  it  out  of  him 
a  little,  so  asked  him  if  he  would  be  surprised  to  hear 
that  the  average  trout  of  the  little  stream  he  regarded 
with  such  contempt  would  swallow  the  average  fish 
of  the  noble  rivers  he  so  extolled,  without  feeling 
much  inconvenience.  Moreover,  that  we  should 
have  to  return  here  as  unsizeable  a  trout  that  would 
almost  certainly  be  the  largest  of  a  good  basket  on  the 
Wear.  Finally  I  ventured  to  point  out  that  though 
the  Wylie  was  full  of  fish  it  was  almost  equally  certain 
that  the  doughtiest  of  the  performers  he  had  in  mind 
would,  if  dropped  down  here  of  a  sudden,  fail  to  catch 
one  of  them.  He  quieted  down  a  little  on  this.  In 
fact  he  received  these  crumbs  of  local  information  in 
stony  silence,  only  remarking  that  he  was  no  fisherman 
himself,  but  that  he  had  many  friends  who  were.  In 
such  case  he  probably  coupled  me  with  them  as  a  son  of 
Ananias,  and  profited  nothing  by  my  well-meant  efforts 

96 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

at  enlightenment.  In  such  frame  of  mind  I  left  him 
at  Codford  station,  and  having  apparently  thrown 
away  precious  truths  I  was  very  sorry  there  was  no 
time  to  teU  him  the  Littlecote  story.  The  biggest 
Kennet  trout  recorded  weighed  nineteen  pounds. 
Just  before  this  chapter  went  to  press  I  curiously 
enough  encountered  on  the  banks  of  a  Welsh  lake  a 
keeper  who  for  several  quite  recent  years  had  charge 
of  the  Ramsbury  fishing.  He  had  the  record  of  his 
catches  by  net  and  rod  at  his  fingers'  ends.  They  even 
more  than  justify  what  I  had  already  set  down  here. 

The  Wylie  is,  I  think,  the  most  pellucid,  and  at 
the  same  time  adorns  the  prettiest  vale,  of  all  the 
Wiltshire  streams.  As  with  the  Avon,  a  chain  of  de- 
lightful thatch-roofed  villages  clustering  round,  in 
almost  every  case,  an  ancient  and  interesting  church, 
stretches  from  Wilton  to  Heytesbury.  There  are 
more  than  a  dozen  of  such  hamlets  with  fine,  old, 
sonorous  names,  and  indeed,  for  abounding  and 
genuine  thatch  commend  me  to  the  chalk  regions  of 
Wiltshire.  People  don't  go  there  much,  and  when 
they  light  upon  half  a  dozen  thatched  cottages  in  a 
village  in  the  home  counties  they  sit  down  at  once  and 
write  an  idyllic  essay  for  a  halfpenny  paper  or  a  maga- 
zine article  upon  the  fact  that  there  are  bits  of  old 
rural  England  even  yet.  It  is  amazing  the  number  of 
people  possessed  of  the  writing  habit  to  whom  the 
fifty-mile  London  radius  apparently  stands  for  Eng- 
land !     Fishermen  of  course  know  better. 

The  water  of  the  WyUe  is  of  astonishing  clarity. 
In  some  of  the  deep,  narrowish  pools  in  the  Wilton 
Club  reaches,  for  example,  you  can  see  the  big  trout 
G  97 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  grayling,  of  strange  and  varied  origin,  lying 
packed,  cheek  by  jowl,  near  the  bottom,  as  clearly  as 
if  but  a  foot  of  water  flowed  above  them.  That  de- 
lightful classic,  The  Vicar  of  BuUhampton,  it  may  also 
be  noted,  is  laid  in  the  Wylie  valley,  though  Trollope, 
with  that  whimsical  habit  of  his,  introduces  a  name  or 
two  from  elsewhere  to  throw  his  reader  off  the  scent, 
and  then  proceeds  to  give  himself  away  to  the  man  of 
local  knowledge.  Codford  claims  to  be  the  precise 
scene  of  the  story.  The  South  Plain  spreads  away 
from  the  narrow  green  vale  of  the  Wylie  into  spacious 
solitudes  upon  either  hand,  as  did  the  North  Plain  from 
the  Avon  banks  of  yore,  before  war  ministers  came  on 
the  scene  with  all  their  brick  camps  and  corrugated 
iron,  and  gives  a  fine  quality  to  the  river — the  only 
one  of  note,  by  the  way,  which  lives  its  whole  life  from 
its  source  to  its  mouth  in  the  county. 

To  return  for  a  moment  to  the  Avon,  below  Ames- 
bury,  by  this  time  quite  a  large  stream.  Resuming  its 
wonted  calm,  and  fringing  on  its  way  the  grounds  of 
more  than  one  historic  manor-house,  it  pursues  its 
peaceful  course  to  Salisbury.  All  along  here,  how- 
ever, grayhng  and,  unfortunately  pike,  share  its  waters 
with  the  trout.  Lower  down  still,  the  latter  gets 
scarcer  and  larger,  and  the  coarse  fish  more  numerous. 
Soon  after  passing  into  Hampshire  at  Downton,  and 
certainly  at  Fordingbridge,  the  Avon  practically 
ceases  to  be  a  trout  stream.  But  then  again,  at  Ring- 
wood,  it  asserts  itself  in  the  most  surprising  manner, 
for  this  class  of  water,  and  becomes  a  salmon  river,  as 
everybody  knows,  and  calls  itself,  in  fishing  parlance 
at  any  rate,  *  The  Christchurch  Avon.'    I  have  no  doubt 

98 


SOME  WILTSHIRE  MEMORIES 

many  people  think  of  it  as  a  Hampshire  river,  though 
nearly  every  drop  of  water  in  it  comes  out  of  the 
Wiltshire  downs ;  in  addition  to  which  it  carries  the 
Wylie  with  it  from  Salisbury  to  the  sea.  Nor,  by 
the  way,  do  I  know  of  any  big  town  in  England 
where  from  its  very  streets  you  can  watch  large  trout 
rising,  as  is  the  case  at  Salisbury.  For  the  river 
prattles  upon  a  gravelly  bottom  right  through  it,  to 
wash  a  little  later  the  back  of  the  cathedral  precincts 
in  truly  picturesque  fashion.  Here  and  below  Salis- 
bury are  trout,  I  think,  almost  as  heavy  as  the  monsters 
of  the  Kennet.  An  oil  painting  of  a  twelve-pounder, 
killed  near  Downton,  comes  back  to  me  at  any  rate 
from  the  study  wall  of  an  old  angler  with  whom  I 
was  intimate  long  ago.  Indeed,  I  cannot  imagine  a 
river  more  likely  for  the  heaviest  type  of  trout  than 
the  lower  Avon. 


99 


CLEAR  WATERS 


IV 
THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

THE  waters  that  spring  from  the  bosom,  or  born 
in  remoter  wilds,  wash  the  skirts  of  the 
great  Merioneth  mountain  are  many  and 
bright.  Chief  among  the  latter  are  the  Wnion  from  the 
slopes  of  Arran  and  the  Mawddach  from  Trawsfynydd 
wastes,  which  mingling  their  streams  at  DolgeUy  and 
meeting  the  tide,  form  that  long,  winding  estuary 
to  Barmouth,  which  is,  to  my  thinking,  one  of  the 
loveliest  gems  of  all  British  scenery.  On  the  other 
and  southern  side,  nurtured  by  the  many  spouting  rills 
which  foam  in  the  deep  green  troughs  above  Dinas 
Mowddwy,  sweeps  down  the  strong,  swift  torrent  of 
the  Dovey,  swelling  as  it  travels  seaward  with  yet  more 
limpid  waters  from  the  boggy,  russet  uplands  of  old 
PHnlimmon.  Shedding  its  brooks  to  the  right  and 
to  the  left  into  these  wide-wandering  rivers,  Cader 
herself  can  claim  at  least  one  lusty,  and  assuredly  no 
less  beautiful,  stream  for  her  own  particular  nursling. 
And  this  is  the  Dysynni,  which  rises  high  up  in  her 
very  throat  within  the  dark  shadow  of  the  rocky  preci- 
pice whose  crown  forms  the  mountain-top,  and  that 
*  chair '  whence  the  giant  Idris,  according  to  ancient 
faith,  used  to  survey  a  trembling  world,  and  when  out 

100 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

of  temper  throw  rocks  at  it,  which  last  may  be  seen 
lying  here  and  there  in  the  valleys  to  this  very  day. 
One  might  fairly  say  that  the  Dysynni  was  born  in  the 
gloomy  tarn  of  Llyn-y-cav,  which  Hes  almost  under 
the  shadow  of  the  precipice.  For  the  rills  that  feed 
it  are  so  tiny  and  so  near  their  source,  that  in  the  pro- 
found silence,  which  is  rarely  broken  but  by  the  croak 
of  the  raven,  the  call  of  the  curlew,  or  the  bleat  of 
sheep,  you  can  scarcely  hear  their  feeble  piping  in  the 
drowsiness  of  high  summer. 

Llyn-y-cav  is  full  of  smallish  trout.  A  friend  of 
mine  who  is  tolerably  reliable  in  such  matters  tells 
me  he  once  filled  a  basket  there.  Others  declare  they 
have  toiled  all  day  and  caught  nothing.  But  this  is 
the  way  of  tarns,  and  there  are  a  good  many  on  the 
Cader  range.  A  mile  or  two  below,  after  much 
plashing  and  plunging  down  a  moorland,  rocky  bed, 
the  infant  Dysynni  ripples  through  some  narrow 
meadows  into  the  beautiful  and  quite  famous  little 
lake  of  Tal-y-Uyn.  I  take  the  last  epithet  to  be  not 
amiss,  since  for  the  better  part  of  a  century  the  lake  has 
been  the  resort  of  fishermen  from  far  and  near,  not 
in  great  numbers  for  the  restricted  nature  of  the  ac- 
commodation, but  as  numerous  in  the  late  spring,  at 
any  rate,  as  the  capacity  of  the  old,  white-washed 
farmhouse  hostelry  upon  the  shore  admits  of.  When 
I  was  a  boy,  a  dear  old  gentleman  and  angler,  beneath 
whose  roof  in  the  Midlands  I  spent  many  a  week  of 
many  Christmas  holidays,  used  to  sing  the  glories  of 
Tal-y-llyn,  and  in  this  case  literally  to  sing  them. 
For,  being  of  a  cheerful  temperament  and  not  very 
musical,  he  was  fond  of  humming  old  and  familiar 

lOI 


CLEAR  WATERS 

songs,  with  more  regard  to  words  than  melody,  and 
sometimes  paraphrasing  them  to  suit  his  own  mild 
adventures,  past  and  prospective.  His  boys,  my 
cronies  and  contemporaries,  were  of  course  budding 
fishermen,  and  often  on  some  dark  January  morning 
in  that  dull,  clay  country,  smirched  even  there  by  the 
smoke  of  Birmingham,  we  would  all  sit  down  to  fly- 
tying  in  the  snug  library  under  the  auspices  of  my 
cheery,  white-haired  host,  while  he  talked  of  streams 
and  lakes  and  fishing  holidays  already,  or  to  be,  en- 
joyed. I  can  hear  him  now  singing  an  extemporised 
refrain  of  his  own,  *  And  now,  boys,  now,  we  '11  be  off 
to  Tal-y-Uyn.'  A  little  sketch  of  the  lake  hung  upon 
the  wall,  and  as  I  didn't  see  the  subject  of  it  till  my 
old  friend  had  been  many  years  in  his  grave,  the  senti- 
ment of  early  association  was  strong  within  me  when 
that  day  came,  and  I  eagerly  turned  to  the  well-worn 
visitors'  book  for  the,  by  that  time,  faded  signature  I 
knew  so  well,  with  the  boys'  names  underneath.  For 
they  too,  even  then,  alas !  had  joined  the  majority. 

Set  in  a  deep  trough,  with  the  mighty  mass  of  Cader 
rising  from  its  northern  shore,  the  lofty  ridge  of  Arran- 
y-Gessel  springing  as  sheer  and  steep  upon  the  other, 
and  the  high  pass  towards  Dolgelly  shutting  out  its 
eastern  end,  this  is  assuredly  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
little  lakes  in  Wales.  It  is  nearly  a  mile  in  length,  but 
narrow  in  proportion,  and  though  enclosed  by  moun- 
tains is  neither  sombre  nor  gloomy.  It  is  not,  for 
instance,  like  Llyn  Ogwen,  and  still  less  like  Idwal, 
inspiring  in  their  own  way  as  are  these  grim  Snow- 
donian  lakes.  Tal-y-llyn  is,  in  short,  not  a  big  tarn, 
but  a  lake.     The  lower  mountain  slopes,  though  steep, 

I02 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

are  verdant.  There  are  touches  also  of  meadow  and 
woodland ;  a  little  farm  at  the  upper  and  two  more  at 
the  lower  end  strike  a  harmonious  note  of  pastoral 
life,  while  the  outpouring  river  plunges  down  into 
the  green  vale  of  Abergynolwyn  beneath  the  walls 
of  a  rude  and  ancient  little  church.  The  two  farms 
at  this  end  of  the  lake  are  the  regular  resorts  of  the 
visiting  angler,  the  notable  one,  an  inn,  already  alluded 
to,  and  a  smaller  house,  which  in  my  day  at  least  was 
of  slight  account.  The  former,  the  Tyn-y-cornel,  had 
then,  I  fancy,  the  sole  right  of  putting  boats  on  the 
water.  Any  one,  I  believe,  could  fish  from  the 
shore,  but  there  were  very  few  people  in  those  parts 
to  exercise  the  right.  The  Tyn-y-cornel,  however, 
in  my  time,  was  more  usually  known  as  *  Jones's,'  and 
possibly  is  so  still.  For  though  this  worthy  has  been 
gathered  to  his  fathers,  his  daughters,  I  believe,  still 
maintain  the  ancient  ways  of  the  pleasant  if  un- 
pretentious snuggery.  The  waters  of  the  lake  lap 
up  close  to  the  door,  before  which  the  coaches  from 
Dolgelly  in  the  tourist  season,  which  is  not,  however, 
the  trouting  season,  unburdened  themselves  betimes, 
and  for  a  brief  hour  disturbed  the  blessed  calm,  causing 
the  colonels  in  residence,  of  whom  anon,  to  swear 
horribly.  The  garden  at  the  back  opens  straight  on 
to  the  mountain,  and  the  prospect  all  round  is  glorious. 
On  a  fine  May  day  it  is  a  spot  for  the  gods. 

There  were  some  half-dozen  boats  attached  to  the 
inn,  and  I  don't  think  the  latter  held  more  than  a 
dozen  people,  so  even  if  all  were  fisher-folk  the  pro- 
cedure was  simplicity  itself.  Moreover  there  was  no 
charge  and  no  boatmen,  the  latter  omission,  from  my 

103 


CLEAR  WATERS 

perhaps  perverted  standpoint,  being  an  infinite  ad- 
vantage. I  am  not,  to  be  sure,  a  very  enthusiastic 
fisher  from  a  drifting  boat,  and  still  less  enamoured  of 
the  all-day  company  of  the  average  boatman,  unless, 
of  course,  he  is  a  man  of  parts  and  character,  which 
makes  a  vast  difference.  Otherwise,  if  he  is  not  bored 
and  blase,  I  cannot  help  putting  myself  in  his  place 
and  feeling  sure  that  I  should  be.  I  would  sooner 
have  a  brother  fisherman  at  the  other  end  and  share 
with  him  the  toils  of  the  oar,  or,  failing  that,  as  often 
happened  on  Tal-y-Uyn,  manage  the  boat  myself. 
Indeed,  this  gives  a  little  extra  interest,  though  a 
little  too  arduous  when  a  strong  wind  is  blowing. 
Tal-y-llyn,  a  curious  feature  for  a  mountain  lake,  is,  for 
the  most  part,  less  than  ten  feet  deep,  with  a  soft,  weedy 
bottom,  and  has,  in  consequence,  fine  feeding  qualities. 
April,  May,  and  early  June,  speaking  broadly,  consti- 
tute its  season.  After  that  I  think  the  sport  is  gener- 
ally poor.  I  have  occasionally  gone  up  there  for  the 
day  in  the  after  months,  not  generally  on  fishing  bent, 
but  for  the  mere  charm  of  the  place,  or  for  a  day's 
outing,  in  the  company  of  friends,  and  the  resident 
anglers  at  such  season,  if  not  actually  depressed,  were 
never  in  serious  or  industrious  mood.  When  they 
have  kindly  offered  to  take  me  out  in  their  boat,  as 
has  sometimes  happened,  they  have  been  always 
suspiciously  ready  to  take  the  oars  while  I  wielded 
their  rod,  an  entertainment  I  never  found  profitable 
at  that  season,  nor  they  either,  I  think. 

I  once,  however,  spent  a  good  part  of  May  at  Tal-y- 
llyn  and  then  all  was  energy,  and  we  caught  lots  of 
fish  which  averaged  about  half  a  pound,  an  excellent 
104 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

standard,  to  my  thinking,  for  any  lake — certainly 
for  one  of  the  accessible  and  less  costly  kind,  for  it 
means  more  fish  of  a  handsome  and  respectable  type 
and  more  sport.  Till  you  get  to  the  very  large  fish, 
which  is  another  matter,  plenty  of  half-pounders  are, 
I  think,  more  comforting  than  occasional  pounders, 
for  the  latter  have  little  more  chance  of  defeating  you, 
if  properly  hooked  in  the  middle  of  a  lake,  than  the 
former.  The  west  wind  blowing  up  the  open  ten 
miles  of  valley  from  the  sea,  even  if  it  were  not  the 
fishermen's  wind,  is  the  one  to  be  invoked  on  Tal-y- 
Uyn,  shut  in  as  it  is  upon  the  other  three  sides  by 
mountains.  Sometimes  it  lashes  the  short  mile  of 
water  into  raging  billows  and  blows  you  down  the 
drifts,  despite  the  big  stone  hung  overboard  as  a  drag, 
with  deplorable  velocity,  and  the  inevitable  pull  back 
against  the  storm  a  dozen  times  perhaps  in  a  day  puts 
you  out  of  conceit  with  the  fancy  for  being  your  own 
boatman.  But  this  is  only  on  occasions  as  rare,  perhaps, 
as  those  still  worse  ones  which  from  morn  till  eve 
confront  the  lake  fisher  with  an  unbroken  surface  of 
glass,  when  the  only  thing  to  be  done  is  to  go  up  a 
mountain — no  bad  alternative  either  at  Tal-y-llyn. 

The  fish  here  are  emphatically  short  risers,  as  only 
becomes  a  breed  whose  ancestors  have  been  fished 
over  for  a  hundred  years.  Above  all,  when  soft 
breezes  just  ruffle  the  face  of  the  waters  and  the  season 
advances,  the  Tal-y-llyn  trout  are  preternaturally 
sharp,  and  you  have  to  be  painfully  wideawake.  It 
is  then,  no  doubt,  that  the  highest  skill,  or  rather  the 
keenest  alertness,  is  required  in  lake  fishing.  Three 
flies  of  small  size  were  used,  and  it  is  needless  to  say, 

105 


CLEAR  WATERS 

upon  the  finest  gut.  The  partridge-green  comes  back 
to  me  as  a  Tal-y-llyn  favourite,  as  it  is  on  so  many  other 
Welsh  lakes.  On  favourable  days  we  generally  had 
some  ten  pounds,  or  about  twenty  fish,  to  the  boat  of 
two  rods — firm,  well-conditioned,  hard-fighting  fish 
too.  A  modest-seeming  haul,  no  doubt,  to  the  wan- 
derer by  far-off,  less  sophisticated,  and  more  highly 
appraised  waters.  But  then,  after  all,  there  is  some 
satisfaction  in  kiUing  sophisticated  fish,  while  as  for 
environment  you  might  range  the  three  kingdoms  in 
vain  for  a  more  perfect  beauty  spot  than  this  secluded 
little  lake  resting  so  bewitchingly  in  the  lap  of  Cader. 
There  had  been  up  to  that  time,  I  think,  no  re-stocking, 
an  omission,  if  indeed  such  it  is  (a  rather  open  question), 
that  has  no  doubt  been  since  remedied.  A  pounder 
was  my  best  fish  during  that  May,  and  I  remember  it 
very  well  as  I  was  alone  in  the  boat,  and  a  gale  raising 
high  waves  was  fast  driving  me  on  to  a  rocky  shore. 
The  Tal-y-llyn  boats,  to  be  sure,  were  not  easily  staved 
in,  an  advantage  which  was  less  apparent  when  you 
had  to  scull  them  back  after  each  drift  for  three- 
quarters  of  a  mile  into  the  teeth  of  a  west  wind.  But 
these  things  lent  variety,  and  even  at  times  excite- 
ment, to  the  rather  even  placidity  of  lake  trouting 
from  a  boat. 

A  little  later  in  that  same  year  I  found  myself  afloat 
on  Lake  Vyrnwy,  that  five-mile  stretch  of  water  which 
the  Liverpool  corporation  have  dammed  back  into 
the  wild  heart  of  the  Berwyn  mountains.  I  did  not 
enjoy  that  so  well,  though  the  expense,  and  not  per- 
haps without  justification,  was  about  twice  and  a  half 
as  much  again.  This  was  not  altogether  because  the 
io6 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

fish  were  rising  indifferently,  and  certainly  not  for 
lack  of  scenic  charm,  for  Lake  Vyrnwy  is  both  imposing 
and  beautiful.  Moreover  I  had  known  that  seques- 
tered mountain  valley  before  its  submersion,  together 
with  its  little  church,  its  vicarage,  its  inn,  and  scattered 
homesteads.  There  was  something  uncanny  in  cast- 
ing one's  fly  over  the  top  of  these  ancient  abodes 
abandoned  to  mud  and  slime,  to  water-weeds,  and  eels, 
and  the  haunt,  no  doubt,  of  cannibal  trout  whom 
anglers  at  the  hotel  caught  in  their  dreams,  but  never 
in  their  waking  hours.  But  I  got  very  tired  of  my 
boatman,  a  miner  from  Ruabon,  particularly  when  at 
times  the  light  breeze  failed  us.  It  was  obvious  he 
would  sooner  have  been  singing  hymns  in  a  Ruabon 
chapel  or  watching  a  football  match.  There  was, 
and  still  is  here,  a  very  comfortable,  modern,  well- 
equipped  hostelry,  too  much  so,  perhaps,  for  my  no 
doubt  heretical  notions. 

You  are  apt  to  get  parties  in  too  sumptuous  apparel 
glaring  at  one  another  from  separate  tables.  You 
have  the  lady  angler,  too,  who  is  just  acquiring  the 
jargon  of  the  craft,  and  displays  it  with  naive  assiduity 
for  the  benefit  of  the  neighbouring  table.  You  enjoy 
many  other  advantages  of  civilisation,  which  are  very 
nice  if  you  are  taking  a  course  of  waters  at  Harrogate  or 
Llandrindod,  but  to  my  prehistoric  notions,  when  one 
goes  a-fishing,  strike  a  rather  jarring  note.  The  con- 
ventions seem  better  left  behind.  Heaven  forbid  that 
I  should  be  thought  to  single  out  Lake  Vyrnwy  as 
a  mark  for  my  belated  prejudices !  It  merely  sug- 
gested a  type,  and  one,  too,  that  I  am  quite  sure  nowa- 
days is  in  general  demand.     It  is  a  beautiful  and  well- 

107 


CLEAR  WATERS 

stocked  lake,  in  exclusive  possession  of  this  comfort- 
able and  delightfully  situated  hotel. 

But  for  myself  I  like  the  old-fashioned  fishing-inn, 
the  simple  parlours,  the  cosy  bar,  even  the  stuffy  bed- 
rooms. I  like  the  old-timers  that  haunt,  or  used  to 
haunt  it,  and  can  suffer  their  expanded  fish  lies,  or,  to 
be  more  polite,  their  terminological  inexactitudes,  with 
joy  and  gladness  for  all  the  fish  that  they  have  really 
caught,  and  all  the  waters  that  they  have  really  fished. 
They  do  not,  I  am  afraid,  exchange  their  fishing  outfit 
at  night  for  a  boiled  shirt  and  dress  jacket,  but  stick 
their  stockinged  feet  into  felt  slippers.  Nor,  I  fear, 
do  they  call  for  gingerade,  nor  hot  water  neat,  nor 
soda-and-milk  as  the  hour  of  rest  approaches,  but  for 
whisky  unabashed,  and  with  a  slice  of  lemon  in  it, 
for  auld  lang  syne,  like  the  immortal  Silas  Wegg.  And 
sometimes  the  calls  of  ancient  friendship  demand  a 
second,  which  leads  to  another  bit  of  coal  upon  the  fire, 
and  then  they  wander  over  old  ground  from  the  Tamar 
to  the  Tay.  What  they  are  when  at  home,  some  of 
these  ancients — sharp  enough  fellows  when  they  have 
got  their  business  coats  on  again,  no  doubt — ^you  might 
crack  with  them,  and  fish  with  them  for  a  month  and 
never  guess,  so  thoroughly  and  so  completely  are  they 
soaked  for  the  time  in  the  passion  of  their  holiday 
hours.  Perhaps  they  are  passing  away,  or  have  already 
passed.  The  world,  maybe,  is  getting  too  rackety 
and  too  complex  nowadays  to  breed  such  characters. 
When  anybody  can  get  anywhere  by  motor  in  a  few 
hours  without  thought  or  without  trouble,  the  senti- 
ment, one  might  say  the  charm,  of  these  old,  wide 
wanderings  is  more  than  half  destroyed.  The  inner 
lo8 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

sanctuaries  are  vulgarised,  the  mystery  of  sequestered 
places  has  vanished,  or  is  vanishing.  And  then  the 
charm  of  finding  them,  and  knowing  them,  and  sharing 
the  knowledge  with  a  few  kindred  souls,  has  gone  too, 
together  with  many  other  things  of  a  quieter  world, 
which  could  not  be  had  without  a  little  enterprise  and 
a  little  trouble,  and  were  surely  the  sweeter  for  it. 

There  were  the  colonels,  too,  under  which  term  I  must 
include  majors  and  captains,  in  the  old  days.  There 
was  nearly  always  one  at  every  quiet  fishing-inn,  very 
often  a  rather  thirsty  soul,  and  sometimes,  it  must  be 
admitted,  a  bit  of  a  nuisance.  For  I  have  not,  of 
course,  in  mind  the  active  warrior  on  short  leave,  nor 
even  the  retired  one  of  recent  and  abstemious  days. 
But  an  earlier  generation,  who  had  worn  side-whiskers 
as  subalterns  and  pushed  the  bottle  briskly  at  mess, 
seems  to  have  been  prolific  in  half-pay  bachelors  who 
drifted  in  their  later  days  almost  instinctively  towards 
the  fishing-inn,  and  made  it  practically  their  summer 
residence.  Almost  inevitably,  too,  they  came  to  fill 
what  might  be  called  the  chair  in  the  ever-shifting 
company,  and  sometimes  filled  it  a  trifle  autocratically. 
It  was  not  good  for  their  health,  in  spite  of  the  counter- 
acting advantages  of  the  outdoor  life,  which  gave  them 
no  doubt  a  longer  innings.  No  human  wight  with 
convivially  sociable  tastes  could  keep  pace  with  relays 
of  old-timers  who  could  afford  to  be  cheerful  and  let 
themselves  go  a  little  for  two  or  three  idle  weeks  of  a 
busy  year.  So  the  colonels,  I  am  afraid,  went  under 
sooner  or  later.  Sometimes  the  descent  to  Avernus 
became  painfully  obvious,  and  when  they  began  to 
remain  over  the  winter  it  was  always  the  beginning 

109 


CLEAR  WATERS 

of  the  end.  A  good  many  of  them,  forgotten  in  their 
premature  decline  by  old  comrades  and  relatives  alike, 
lie  in  country  churchyards  among  the  mountains  of 
Wales,  the  victims  of  too  much  leisure,  otherwise  too 
much  conviviaHty,  and  indirectly,  alas,  of  a  love  for 
the  rod. 

Three  veterans,  by  no  means  colonels,  however, 
used  to  meet  annually  at  Tal-y-Uyn.  It  was  an  un- 
alterable fixture,  a  law  of  the  Medes  and  Persians. 
One  came  from  Yorkshire,  the  other  from  SouthWales, 
and  a  third  from  London.  Their  respective  wives, 
I  have  some  reason  to  beUeve,  had  never  seen  each 
other.  Not  belonging  precisely  to  the  same  grade  of 
society,  they  would,  doubtless,  have  refused  to  meet ! 
But  for  this  the  three  ancients,  I  am  sure,  cared  less 
than  nothing.  They  were  great  cronies.  The  best 
boats — and  the  boats  as  well  as  the  oars  were  anything 
but  a  level  lot  at  Tal-y-llyn — were  reserved  for  them 
as  a  matter  of  prescriptive  right.  Even  the  colonel,  and 
there  was  very  much  of  a  colonel,  and  sometimes  two, 
at  the  Tyn-y-cornel  in  those  days  (both  have  gone 
under),  took  a  back  seat  in  the  choice  of  boats  for  these 
three  weeks.  The  trio  were  also  men  of  method. 
Whitmonday  always  fell  some  time  in  their  holiday,  and 
as  punctually  upon  that  morning  they  all  drove  to 
Machynlleth  in  Mr.  Jones's  cart,  and  took  the  railway 
to  Aberdovey,  where  they  fished  in  the  sea  that  after- 
noon and  the  next  morning,  returning  at  night  to 
renew  their  labours  on  Tal-y-llyn. 

Every  one  of  middle  age  familiar  with  the  Wye  in 
its  higher  reaches,  knows  the  pathetic  story  of  the 
three  fishers,  not  Kingsley's,  *  who  went  out  into  the 
no 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

west  when  the  sun  went  down,'  but  old  cronies  who 
for  a  lifetime  resorted  every  year  to  that  once  famous 
old  hostelry,  The  Three  Cocks,  near  Glasbury.  And 
how  first  one  died  in  harness,  then  the  other ;  and 
how  the  survivor,  when  too  feeble  and  rheumatic  to 
wield  a  salmon-rod,  used  to  come  down  to  the  old 
quarters  and  wander  in  mournful  guise  along  the  river 
bank.  It  is  no  legend,  but  a  true  tale.  I  know  the 
inn  well,  and  have  seen  some  of  the  tackle  they  left 
behind  them  there,  carefully  treasured. 

Now  displayed  upon  the  wall  of  the  parlour  at  the 
Tyn-y-cornel  there  is,  or  was  when  I  frequented  it, 
a  life-size  illustration  of  a  trout,  executed  by  one  of  its 
former  fishing  colonels,  who  was  also  no  mean  artist. 
This  picture  was  a  great  asset  to  the  inn,  for  its  sub- 
ject presented  a  perennial  and  practically  insoluble 
problem.  It  provoked  the  curiosity  of  the  newcomer 
as  soon  as  ever  he  had  found  his  tongue ;  and  then  the 
oldest  habitue  in  residence,  probably  the  colonel,  or  if 
he  was  resting,  the  next  guest  in  seniority  of  associa- 
tion, as  a  matter  of  right  and  etiquette  told  the  story, 
which  is  in  truth  a  sufficiently  marvellous  and  withal 
a  perfectly  true  one. 

Near  by  the  roadside  on  the  wild  pass  leading  up 
from  the  head  of  Tal-y-Uyn  over  the  mountain  and  by 
the  old  Cross-fords  inn  to  Dolgelly  is  an  insignificant 
tarn,  historically  entitled  to  the  designation  of  Llyn-y- 
tri-graien,  or  '  the  lake  of  the  three  grains,'  but  vul- 
garly known,  doubtless  for  its  very  insignificance,  as 
Pebble  pool.  The  three  grains,  I  might  remark,  are 
represented  by  three  rocks  which  Idris,  whose  passion 
for  stone-throwing  has  been  alluded  to,  flung  down 

III 


CLEAR  WATERS 

there  in  a  rage  as  they  had  got  into  his  shoe  and  in- 
commoded him.  If  memory  serves  me  you  could 
almost  throw  a  biscuit  across  the  pool's  shallow, 
transparent  waters.  There  are  no  fish  in  it,  nor  from 
its  appearance  would  any  passer-by  for  a  moment 
expect  there  to  be.  Some  thirty  years  ago  it  looked 
just  the  same,  nor  did  any  traveller  upon  this  often 
travelled  highway  suspect  that  the  shallow,  trans- 
parent pond  was  the  haunt  of  anything  bigger  than 
a  minnow. 

One  day,  however,  a  well-known  local  character, 
while  driving  by,  saw  what  he  believed,  though  he  could 
scarce  credit  his  eyes,  to  be  a  monster  trout.  So,  of 
course,  he  stopped  at  the  inn  on  his  way  down  the  valley 
and  related  the  astounding  vision  to  all  there  con- 
cerned, and  as  this  was  in  the  fishing  season  everybody 
in  the  house  was  greatly  moved  thereat.  For  the  way- 
farer was  a  man  of  standing,  fish  knowledge,  and  sober 
habit.  One  of  the  colonels,  indeed  the  very  artist  who 
immortaHsed  the  fish  on  the  parlour  wall,  being  in  resi- 
dence, it  fell  to  him  of  course  to  take  the  necessary  steps. 
Being  then  in  his  prime  and  not  long  on  the  retired 
list,  he  set  off  at  once  for  the  lonely  pool,  near  the  head 
of  the  pass,  armed  for  the  fray.  I  knew  him  well  in 
after  years,  and  he  often  told  me  the  tale  of  the  great 
capture  which,  in  fact,  was  a  brief  one  and  of  slight 
interest  compared  to  the  mystery  of  the  trout  itself. 
For  the  latter  took  his  natural  minnow  almost,  I  think, 
at  the  first  offer,  which  was  not  after  all  very  strange, 
as  he  had  probably  denuded  the  pond  by  this  time  of 
its  Hve-stock.  The  fish  was  brought  to  the  bank 
successfully  after  a  lively  contest,  and  weighed  just 

112 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

five  pounds — a  positive  whale  for  these  mountains,  and 
in  any  case  a  phenomenon,  as  the  sole  denizen  and 
product  of  a  little  patch  of  what  might  almost  be 
mistaken  in  golfer's  phrase  for  *  casual  water.'  How 
long  had  he  been  there  ?  whence  came  he,  and  why- 
had  no  one  ever  before  seen  him  ?  Nor  again  was 
there  any  access  up  the  smallest  water-course  to  the 
pool.  However,  the  fish  had  got  there  somehow, 
presumably  in  infancy,  and  acquired  cunning  perhaps 
as  he  waxed  and  fattened,  lying  perdu  by  day  and 
raiding  his  preserve  of  grubs  and  minnows  by  night. 
But  these  are  the  things  that  have  kept  the  tongues 
of  the  wisest  at  Tal-y-llyn  wagging  to  small  purpose 
for  over  three  decades,  and  the  problem,  I  have  no 
doubt,  is  as  fresh  and  mysterious  and  insoluble  as 
ever.  For  there,  I  am  told,  is  the  fish  still  upon  the 
wall,  and  there  beyond  any  doubt  by  the  roadside,  high 
up  the  pass  for  every  wayfarer  to  see,  is  the  Pebble 
pool,  and  those  who  have  seen  both  can  guess  at  the 
life-story  of  that  mysterious  sockdolager  in  such  fashion 
as  may  seem  good  to  each  of  them. 

When  I  began  this  chapter  I  had  no  intention  of 
lingering  so  long  at  Tal-y-llyn,  seeing  how  much  more 
time  I  have  actually  spent  upon  the  river  which  runs 
out  of  it  and  away  down  towards  the  sea  which  it 
meets  near  Towyn.  I  have  not  so  much  as  set  eyes 
on  either  lake  or  river  for  a  dozen  years.  But  away 
back  in  the  eighties  a  little  group  of  us,  old  friends 
and  all  fishermen,  and  what  was  infinitely  more  remark- 
able at  that  remote  date,  not  being  North  Britons, 
all  golfers,  used  to  repair  thither  with  our  belongings 
for  the  month  of  August  and  perhaps  a  little  more. 
H  113 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Our  men-folk  persuaded  their  wives  that  it  was  the 
nicest  place  in  Wales  because  there  were  no  trippers, 
and  by  a  more  convincing  argument  that  on  its  rather 
melancholy  but  level  sands  the  children  couldn't  get 
drowned  if  they  tried.  For  one  or  more  in  every 
party  of  infants  invariably  makes  an  attempt  at  self- 
destruction  if  they  have  half  a  chance.  The  tyrant 
sex,  too,  liked  to  feel  when  they  were  away  up  the 
Dysynni,  sewin  fishing,  that  their  progeny  were  quite 
safe.  It  was  some  years  before  the  ladies  struck,  if  so 
harsh  a  term  may  be  used  ;  the  children  and  the  men 
never  did.  Towyn  was  very  small  in  those  days,  and 
was  proudly  regarded  by  its  inhabitants  as  particularly 
select.  The  last  time  I  went  through  it  and  stopped 
to  call  upon  my  old  friend  and  everybody's  friend,  the 
chemist  and  fishing-tackle  vender,  he  almost  shed 
tears  at  the  social  slump  in  the  way  of  summer  visitors 
that  had  taken  place.  A  psychical  moment  had  in 
fact  occurred  some  years  before  in  the  history  of 
Towyn.  It  was  a  question  of  making  a  golf-course, 
where  nature  had  provided  them  with  almost  a  ready- 
made  one  of  the  finest  quality,  or  building  a  long, 
expensive,  and  dreary  asphalt  promenade. 

Now  there  was  not  a  single  golf-course  then  in  the 
whole  of  Wales.  Aberdovey  close  by,  the  first  in  the 
Principality,  was  not  quite  yet  laid  out.  We  had 
already  in  our  off  hours  played  for  many  Augusts  over 
as  fine  a  natural  surface  with  sand-hills,  bunkers,  and 
keen  turf  as  could  be  desired,  to  the  amazement  of 
natives  and  visitors,  none  of  whom  had  ever  before 
seen  the  uncanny  thing.  Such  a  chance,  and  at  such 
a  moment,  never  offered  itself  to  a  little  watering- 
114 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

place.  The  southern  courses  could  have  been  then 
counted  upon  the  fingers  of  two  hands.  But  the 
southerner  was  already  inoculated,  and  we  beheld  the 
coming  boom  as  plain  as  daylight.  But  to  the  arbiters 
of  Towyn's  destiny  our  urgent  representations  seemed 
so  much  foolishness.  So  they  spent  thousands  (the 
great  man  did)  in  an  effort,  mostly  vain  I  think,  to 
decoy  the  negro  minstrel,  the  tripper,  and  the  brass 
band,  where  hundreds  laid  out  on  a  golf-course  would 
have  made  a  different  place  of  it,  and  *  the  select '  fled 
before  the  asphalt  with  its  possibilities.  Hinc  illae 
lachrymae  of  the  patriotic  chemist.  The  monstrous 
blunder  has  been  tardily  rectified.  Our  old  stamping- 
ground,  where  we  astonished  the  natives,  and  despite 
the  terrors  of  wandering  black  bulls  of  truculent  char- 
acter enjoyed  ourselves,  save  perhaps  on  our  im- 
provised putting-greens,  is  now,  I  believe,  what  it 
should  have  been  made  twenty-five  years  ago.  But 
to  what  purpose,  speaking  relatively  ?  For  the  coast 
of  Wales — north,  west,  and  south — is  now  a  chain  of 
golf  links ! 

There  was  always,  too,  an  annual  cricket  match 
between  the  visitors  and  the  local  club,  all  working 
men,  whose  mother  and  only  tongue  was  Welsh. 
There  was  something  racy  in  playing  a  team  who  had 
no  English  and  whose  captain  placed  his  men  and 
shouted  his  instructions  in  the  ancient  tongue  of  the 
Cymry.  There  was  something  more  than  risky  in  fac- 
ing fast  bowling  on  the  local  wicket.  For  myself,  I 
always  looked  forward  with  dread  to  the  inevitable 
encounter,  and  instead  of  a  bold  and  cheerful  mien 
always  walked  to  the  wicket  in  a  cold  sweat.     We  had 

115 


CLEAR  WATERS 

some  talent,  and  could  have  given  our  opponents  great 
odds  on  an  average  English  village  green.  But  so 
utterly  were  we  cowed  by  the  rugged  irregularities  of 
the  pitch  that  we  were  generally  beaten.  It  was  only 
an  afternoon  match,  but  all  four  innings,  when  such 
were  necessary,  were  easily  completed  long  before  the 
limit  hour,  so  frequently  did  a  wide  to  the  off  take  your 
leg  stump  or  the  reverse. 

The  Dysynni  was  a  very  interesting  and  a  very 
beautiful  river.  It  was  tolerably  good  for  one  that 
comes  within  the  scope  of  a  light-hearted  domestic 
holiday.  The  ladies  thought  us  rather  brutal,  and 
with  some  justice,  as  we  were  always  praying  for  rain. 
In  our  heart  of  hearts  we  couldn't  have  enough  of  it, 
though  we  didn't  perhaps  say  so.  For  the  rain  took 
the  sewin  and  some  salmon  up,  and  though  there  was 
a  great  deal  of  netting  at  the  mouth,  a  fair  number 
escaped.  One  great  merit  of  the  Dysynni  lay  in  the 
fact  that  from  Peniarth,  some  four  miles  up,  where  the 
rapid  water  ceased,  the  river  ran  deep  and  slow,  and 
was  slightly  affected  for  some  distance  by  the  tide. 
Above  Peniarth  it  was  swift  and  broken  with  all  the 
characteristics  of  a  mountain  stream ;  so  that  after  rain, 
when  the  water  was  in  condition,  we  could  fish  the 
upper  part  to  advantage,  and  when  that  ran  low  and 
clear  we  could  apply  ourselves  so  long  as  there  was  a 
breeze  to  the  deep,  sluggish  reaches  below.  The 
sewin  and  trout  lay  and  rose,  when  they  felt  disposed 
to  rise,  in  both.  But  the  brown  trout  in  the  upper 
water  were  usually  of  the  smaller  breed,  those  in  the 
lower  waters  were  mostly  pounders  or  thereabouts. 
This  was,  of  course,  ages  before  the  days  of  motors.  It 
ii6 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

was  before  the  days  even  of  safety  bicycles.  I  don't 
think  fishermen,  not  perhaps  being  a  venturesome  race, 
ever  rode  those  high,  fearsome  things  of  ancient  times, 
a  fall  from  which  seemed  to  portend  certain  death. 
So  our  party  used  to  drive  in  a  rusty  wagonette  from 
the  Corbett  Arms  to  the  old  stone  bridge  near  the 
village  of  Bryncrug,  when  we  fished  the  lower  water, 
and  by  rough  roads  to  Peniarth,  when  we  fished  the 
upper  reaches.  It  was  all  association  water,  but  there 
were  not  many  fishermen  on  it  in  those  days,  and  there 
was  abundant  room.  I  recall  those  jog-trot  drives 
up  the  valley  as  not  the  least  pleasant  part  of  the  pro- 
gramme. We  were  always  happy  and  in  high  good 
temper  as  we  went  out,  particularly  if  a  light  rain  was 
blowing  up  from  the  sea  in  a  dull  sky. 

On  looking  back,  pangs  of  remorse  seize  me  that  we 
ought  to  have  thought  more  of  our  dejected  families, 
threatened  with  a  whole  day's  imprisonment  within 
the  walls  of  Towyn  lodging-houses,  looking  out  upon 
a  dreary  sea.  We  ought  not  to  have  been  so  cheerful. 
It  was  utterly  wrong.  But  man  is  a  selfish  animal  and 
woman  a  long-suffering  one — or  she  used  to  be.  A 
lady  the  other  day  begged  and  implored  me  to  make 
a  fisherman  of  her  husband.  Of  course  he  may  have 
bored  her,  and  if  I  had  felt  certain  of  that  I  would 
have  done  my  best,  but  they  seemed  to  be  a  reasonably 
devoted  couple,  and  I  absolutely  declined  to  have  a 
finger  in  any  such  business,  particularly  as  it  would 
have  been  a  hopeless  task.  Our  drives  home  were 
not  always  so  cheerful,  but  after  a  good  day  they  were 
the  best  of  all.  I  look  upon  it  as  one  of  the  stoutest 
evidences  of  the  nobility  of  woman,  that  after  being  shut 

"7 


CLEAR  WATERS 

up  for  the  whole  of  a  rainy  day  in  cramped  quarters  she 
can  get  up  as  much  excitement  over  the  turning  out 
of  a  good  basket  on  to  a  kitchen  dish  as  the  captor 
himself  secretly  feels,  though  of  course  he  always 
takes  it  coolly,  as  if  it  were  an  everyday  affair,  well  as 
his  wife  knows  it  to  be  nothing  of  the  kind. 

On  the  two  miles  or  so  of  dead  water  between 
Peniarth  and  Bryncr%  bridge,  along  whose  margin 
a  thin  fringe  of  bulrushes  was  always  whispering,  the 
procedure  was  curious.  At  any  rate  I  have  never 
fished  any  other  water  in  the  same  way,  and  indeed 
I  am  not  sure  if  I  know  any  quite  like  this  one.  We 
used  small  flies  of  ordinary  trout  pattern,  two  and 
sometimes  three  of  them  on  moderately  fine  gut. 
We  fished  straight  up  stream,  of  which  last,  however, 
there  was  practically  none,  for  the  sufficient  reason  that 
the  necessary  breeze  always  blew  up  the  valley.  The 
river  was  just  about  a  long  cast  in  width,  but  we  did 
not  concern  ourselves  much  with  the  middle  nor 
exert  ourselves  to  test  the  opposite  bank.  Experience — 
and  there  was  a  great  deal  of  concentrated  local  ex- 
perience in  the  matter — held  it  to  be  unprofitable. 
The  sewin  seemed  nearly  always  to  be  within  a  yard 
or  two  of  the  bank  close  to  the  reeds.  So,  though  not 
wholly  neglecting  mid-stream,  we  mainly  cast  and 
worked  our  flies  close  to  the  near  bank.  It  was  a  rather 
monotonous  method,  as  the  river  was  like  a  canal  save 
for  its  clear  mountain  water  and  the  game  fish  that 
swam  in  it.  But  against  this  we  had  the  consolation 
of  remembering  that  it  was  only  possible  to  fish  it  on 
so  many  days  because  of  this  monotonous  character. 
Had  it  been  a  merry,  shallow,  chattering  river,  as  in 
ii8 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

fact  it  was  above,  and  like  most  sea-trout  rivers,  it 
would  only  have  been  fishable  in  times  of  fresh  water. 
It  was  for  these  staunch  and  enduring  qualities  we 
so  greatly  esteemed  it,  though  that  of  patience  on  our 
part  was  sometimes  severely  tested.  The  sewin  ran 
from  one  to  four  pounds,  and  the  occasional  trout 
generally  exceeded  the  former  weight,  and  all  were 
shapely,  clean  fish.  How  beautiful  is  the  leap  of  a 
freshly  hooked  sewin — a  bar  of  silver  in  the  sun- 
shine !  A  mediaeval  Welsh  bard  thought  a  sewin  in 
the  sunshine  was  the  most  beautiful  sight  in  the  world, 
next  to  the  ladies  of  Merioneth.  We  usually  got  a 
brace  or  two  a-piece  (sewin,  I  mean),  though  both 
red-letter  days  and  yet  more  blank  ones  rise  to 
memory ;  or  more  often  perhaps,  in  the  case  of  the 
latter,  have  sunk  into  oblivion. 

Grey  days  in  summer  time,  when  waters  are  ruffling, 
woods  blowing,  reeds  bending,  rushes  or  moor  grasses 
whistling  in  a  warm  wind,  have  always  had  for  me  a 
strange  and  unfathomable  charm.  I  cannot  analyse 
it,  but  can  dimly  trace  its  origin  to  boyish  days  on 
Eixmoor  and  feel  its  fixed  abiding  charm.  It  was  the 
same  at  twenty-five  as  at  fifteen,  at — ^well,  we  won't 
go  on  !  Enough  that  it  remains  almost — for  some- 
thing of  life's  freshness  must  fade — as  strong  as  ever. 
Water,  no  doubt,  is  the  centre  of  all  the  ingredients  that 
make  up  this  particular  landscape  effect,  which  has  for 
me  such  a  peculiar  fascination.  It  has  been  pronounced 
eccentric !  Familiars  who  cannot  understand  it  have 
stoutly  protested  that  it  has  something  to  do  with 
fishing.  I  could  not  positively  swear  that  its  origin 
was  wholly  dissociated  from  trout,  but  not  in  the  almost 

119 


CLEAR  WATERS 

brutal  way  they  would  have  it.  There  are  lots  of 
people  who  are  always  shouting  for  sunshine,  every 
day  and  all  the  time,  and  wishing  they  were  in  Italy, 
or  California,  or  Mexico,  or  some  other  parched-up 
country  with  a  *  superb  climate.'  I  worshipped  at 
the  shrine  of  the  sun-god,  not  over  willingly  on  his 
account,  for  a  good  many  years,  and  when  we  did  get 
a  dull  day,  how  glorious  and  stimulating  it  was  ! 
Even  the  sun-worshippers  gave  thanks.  Even  191 1 
in  Old  England,  a  mere  trifle  of  course  in  the  matter 
of  heat,  gave  pause  to  the  devotion  of  some. 

Dysynni  memories  are  much  associated  with  such 
grey  days,  for  the  good  reason  that  we  had  a  great 
many  of  them,  and  I  recall  them  with  infinite  tender- 
ness. If  the  lower  river  and  its  fringe  of  swaying  reeds 
was  a  bit  sombre,  rolling  through  level  meadows  to 
the  wide  open  level  mouth  of  the  valley  against  which 
the  grey  seas  tumbled,  what  glories  of  hill,  mountain, 
and  woodland  lay  all  about  it !  The  wild,  lofty  ridge 
that  shut  us  out  from  the  Dovey  valley,  furrowed 
with  pellucid  streams  which  spouted  down  from  their 
high  bogs  through  bosky  glens  of  oak  and  fern ;  the 
Craig-a-deryn  too  ('  Bird  rock '),  which  shot  up  for 
six  hundred  feet  sheer  in  the  midst  of  the  narrowing 
valley,  while  to  its  rocky  crown  the  sea-fowl  travelled 
over  our  heads  in  great  companies  every  evening  from 
the  coast.  And  ever  in  front  of  us,  at  the  far  head  of 
the  vale,  beyond  the  folding  foot-hills,  the  great  pile 
of  Cader  lifted  itself  against  the  sky.  All  these  things 
were  assuredly  no  less  effective  and  inspiring  when 
storms  brooded  over  them  and  they  opened  and  shut  in 
whirling  clouds  ;  and  when,  peradventure,  the  morn- 
120 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

ing  sun  shone  upon  them  the  next  day,  what  radiancy 
was  theirs !  what  sparkling  meadows,  what  glowing 
hillsides ! 

Those  much  less  frequent  days  when  the  upper  and 
rapid  part  of  the  water  was  fishable,  and  provided  a 
change  of  venue,  always  brought  pleasurable  antici- 
pations and  sometimes  pretty  fair  results,  as  results 
were  counted  on  the  Dysynni.  The  river  is  smaller  up 
here,  just  an  ordinary  trout  stream  of  the  less  rugged 
Welsh  sort,  a  stream  of  pools  and  gravelly  glides  easily 
compassed  from  its  meadowy  bank.  It  soon  ran  down 
out  of  condition,  but  in  the  process  we  generally  had 
a  fairly  merry  time  with  the  sewin,  which  sometimes 
took  a  Devon  minnow  in  the  clearing  of  the  water 
from  porter  to  brown  sherry  colour.  All  this  fishing, 
both  upper  and  lower,  was  known  as  the  Peniarth 
water,  and  that  ancient  mansion  of  the  Wynns,  amid 
its  thick,  wind-buffeted  woods,  stood  here  near  the 
river  bank,  the  repository  at  one  time,  and  still  I 
think  in  a  measure,  of  the  famous  Peniarth  MSS.,  one 
of  the  most  valuable  collections  of  ancient  manuscripts 
in  Wales.  Most  of  this  Peniarth  water  had  been 
handed  over  to  the  association  for  the  benefit  of 
Towyn  and  its  visitors. 

But  above  these  reaches,  and  running  up  through 
the  narrowing  and  always  lovely  valley  to  the  village 
of  Abergynolwyn,  came  a  long  stretch  of  private  water 
preserved  by  its  owner,  who  was  both  resident  and  a 
keen  fisherman,  though  now  long  dead.  I  always 
admired  that  unselfish  soul,  though  I  scarcely  knew 
him  to  speak  to.  One  of  our  party  had  a  slightly 
nearer  acquaintance,  so  his  generosity  to  us  was  per- 

121 


CLEAR  WATERS 

haps  a  little  less  remarkable.  But  any  respectable 
visitor  at  Towyn  who  wrote  to  him  for  a  day's  fishing 
was  granted  it  with  the  further  privilege  of  bringing  a 
friend.  If  he  hadn't  been  a  fisherman,  though  most 
non-fishermen  don't  look  at  it  that  way,  the  concession 
would  merely  have  been  a  piece  of  civility  creditable 
under  the  circumstances,  but  which  cost  practically 
nothing.  Here,  however,  was  a  keen  sportsman 
with  two  miles  of  excellent  sewin  water,  when  and 
while  it  was  in  order,  inviting  strangers  whom  he  had 
never  seen  to  come  and,  so  to  speak,  share  it  with  him 
in  the  best  four  or  five  weeks.  Now  I  know  a  man, 
and  a  wealthy  one  too,  who  lives  upon  and  owns  six 
miles  of  as  fine  a  rapid  trout  river  as  you  would  find 
anywhere.  Half  a  dozen  rods  upon  it  every  fishable 
day  of  the  season  would  do  it  rather  good  than  harm. 
He,  too,  is  a  keen  fisherman.  He  is  an  old  school- 
fellow of  mine,  and  once  being  in  the  neighbourhood 
I  lightly  suggested  (fortunately  I  got  no  further)  to  a 
third  party,  who  knew  him  well,  that  I  should  ask  him 
for  a  day  or  two's  fishing.  The  third  party  roared  with 
laughter :  '  Old  schoolfellow !  Why,  I  doubt  if  his 
own  brother  could  get  a  day.  I  know  his  own  rector 
can't,  who  has  fished  the  river  all  his  life  till  this  en- 
gaging aUen  swooped  down  upon  it.  He  might  ask 
you  to  dinner  (which,  by  the  way,  he  actually  did). 
He 's  quite  normal  otherwise,  but  a  day's  fishing !  Not 
much ! '  I  was  further  warned  by  the  strongest  hint 
from  his  wife,  and  all  this  is  quite  true.  Six  miles — 
think  of  it !  and  then  have  regard  to  this  generous 
Welsh  major  ! 

I  always  felt  sorry  that  the  major  was  out  on  the 

122 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

very  day  in  all  the  years  that  we  made  our  bumper 
basket  on  his  water.  I  use  the  plural  for  brevity,  but 
it  will  require  much  qualifying,  just  as  the  regrets 
that  the  owner  was  out  on  a  presumably  propitious 
day  will  require  some  explanation.  Now  by  long 
odds  the  most  successful  sewin  fisherman  of  our 
party  was  an  old  friend  of  my  youth.  He  was  the 
Nestor  among  us  as  regards  the  Dysynni,  and  had  fished 
it  for  I  don't  know  how  many  years,  having  some 
old  connection  with  the  neighbourhood.  At  any  rate 
he  had  established  an  understanding  with  the  Dysynni 
sea-going  fish  that  no  one,  local  or  alien,  ever  I  think 
quite  equalled.  His  favourite  fly — a  variety  of  claret 
and  mallard,  if  I  remember  rightly — was  dressed 
especially  for  the  Towyn  tackle-vender,  and  called 
by  my  friend's  name  and  recommended  to  all  strange 
fishermen.  Possibly  it  is  still.  Wickham,  Hoffland, 
Francis,  and  other  classic  characters  writ  large  on  the 
parchment  margin  of  the  Towyn  chemist's  case  of  flies 
took  a  back  seat,  and  the — well,  never  mind,  bade 
fair  to  give  my  friend  immortality  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Dysynni.  Sea-trout  fishing  theoretically  is  simple, 
straightforward  work,  calling  apparently  for  no  special 
deftness,  nor  pregnant  with  any  great  mysteries  like 
trouting.  But  my  friend  had  some  gift,  and  possibly 
an  unconscious  trick  of  so  manoeuvring  his  flies,  even 
in  the  dead  waters  where  one  cast  was  exactly  like 
another,  as  to  kill  more  sewin  than  anybody,  and  if  a 
salmon  was  about  and  was  to  be  caught  at  all,  he 
always  nipped  it.  Probably  he  was  also  what  is  known 
as  a  lucky  fisherman. 

But  at  any  rate  on  this  occasion  he  and  I,  armed 

123 


CLEAR  WATERS 

with  the  major's  permits,  started  in  at  the  head  of  his 
water,  just  below  the  village  of  Abergynolwyn,  where 
the  river  is  quite  small.  It  was  a  perfect  fishing 
morning.  There  was  exactly  the  right  amount  of 
water,  and  it  had  fined  nicely  down  into  fly  condition 
after  a  day  or  two  of  heavy  rain.  The  sun  was  shining 
upon  grove,  mead,  and  mountain,  which  fairly  sparkled 
as  only  West  Britain  can  sparkle  when  illuminated 
after  summer  storms,  and  a  beautiful  soft  breeze  was 
blowing.  We  did  nothing,  I  think,  till  we  got  to  the 
confluence  of  the  stream  from  Llanfihangel,  at  the  foot 
of  Cader,  with  the  Dysynni.  Nor  do  I  think  at 
sandwich-and-flask  time,  half  a  mile  below,  had  we 
more  than  a  couple  of  sewin,  and  a  few  respectable 
brook  trout  between  us.  Then  as  we  proceeded  lower 
my  friend  began  to  work  his  conjuring  tricks.  To 
shorten  my  tale,  he  killed  that  afternoon,  if  memory 
serves  me,  nine  sewin  and  certainly  three  grilse  of  from 
five  pounds  to  six  pounds  a-piece.  Fortunately  he  had 
his  son  with  him  to  carry  them.  As  for  me,  it  was  one 
of  those  evil  days  in  which  one  fancies  some  accursed 
imp  must  be  seated  on  one's  shoulders.  It  is  of  no 
consequence,  and  all  of  us  are  liable  to  them.  Every 
sewin,  but  a  miserable  brace  basketed,  that  took  me, 
either  went  off  with  the  fly  through  my  fault  or  that 
of  the  gut  and  a  very  stiff  rod,  or  else  shook  himself 
free  in  the  encounter.  Nor  was  it  likely  that  a  salmon 
was  going  to  look  at  anybody  so  hopelessly  out  of 
favour  with  the  gods. 

But  it  did  rather  disturb  us  under  the  circumstances 
when  in  the  evening  we  met  the  major  and  two  friends 
who  had  been  fishing  the  lowest  reaches  beneath  the 
124 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

house,  that  they  too  had  practically  nothing  be- 
tween them.  And  when  my  friend's  son,  staggering 
under  the  weight  of  his  father's  catch,  laid  it  out  upon 
the  bridge  for  inspection,  the  major  would  have  been 
more  than  human  if  he  had  not  felt  something  of  an 
inward  twinge  at  the  contrast,  and  on  his  own  water 
too.  But  being,  as  I  am  sure  he  was,  very  much  of 
a  sportsman  and  a  gentleman,  he  had  nothing  but 
hearty  congratulations  on  the  sport  his  water  had 
provided  for  a  comparative  stranger. 

Now,  at  the  mouth  of  the  Dysynni,  where  a  mile  or 
so  north  of  Towyn  it  runs  under  the  Cambrian  rail- 
road bridge  into  the  sea,  there  used  at  certain  con- 
ditions of  the  tide  to  be  very  good  bass-fishing.  One 
summer  an  impulsive  Irish  friend  of  mine  joined  our 
party  for  a  time — a  young  man  of  great  originality,  a 
fine  horseman,  and  something  of  a  poet,  but  of  so 
mercurial  a  temperament  and  such  impetuous  habit 
that  he  seldom  came  into  a  room  without  chipping 
a  piece  of  furniture  or  knocking  something  off  the 
mantelpiece.  But,  as  there  was  practically  no  furni- 
ture in  the  Towyn  furnished  apartments,  and  nothing 
on  the  mantelpiece  but  photographs  of  deceased 
dissenting  ministers  with  leonine  manes  and  Newgate 
fringes,  we  thought  it  safe  to  ask  him  down,  as  we  were 
much  attached  to  him.  Though  otherwise  an  ex- 
tremely personable  young  man,  he  had  a  close,  tightly 
curled  crop  of  the  reddest  hair  I  have  ever  to  my 
knowledge  seen.  And  I  don't  think  this  description 
can  be  much  too  strong.  For  I  once  introduced  him, 
suddenly  as  it  so  happened,  and  without  warning, 
to  a  plain  American  of  the  homespun  type  on  tour. 

125 


CLEAR  WATERS 

This  gentleman  was  so  taken  aback,  that  instead  of 
releasing  his  hand  after  the  conventional  shake,  or 
even  saying  *  I  'm  happy  to  meet  you,  sir,'  he  gripped 
it  fast  and  held  it  there,  as  if  concerned  lest  a 
side-show  that  hadn't  been  mentioned  in  Baedeker 
should  escape  him  before  he  had  thoroughly  examined 
it.  When  his  deliberate  inspection  was  concluded  he 
found  his  tongue.  *  I  didn't  rightly  catch  your  name, 
sir,  but  you  've  a  mighty  red  head  anyway  ! '  and  then 
he  released  him.  I  might  remark,  in  extenuation  of 
the  Homespun's  freedom  of  manner,  that  my  poppy- 
headed  friend  was  under  twenty  at  that  time.  The 
ladies,  however,  who  are  better  judges  of  such  things, 
always  maintained  that  he  had  the  most  beautiful  hair 
they  had  ever  seen.  Beautiful  or  otherwise,  it  ex- 
pressed his  breathless,  heady  temperament  to  a  fault. 

His  first  visit  to  me  had  been  at  another  fishing- 
place  when  he  was  perhaps  eighteen.  I  didn't  know 
him  to  speak  of  at  that  time  and  had  advised  him  to 
bring  tackle.  So  he  arrived  with  a  new  rod  and  fly- 
book.  The  stream  there  happened  to  be  steep  and 
torrential,  a  mass  of  crags  and  boulders  and  deep  pools. 
He  was  of  East  Anglian  rearing  though  of  Irish  blood, 
and  had  never  beheld  such  things,  nor  even  a  trout. 
An  old  ex-keeper  took  him  in  hand  and  told  me  that 
he  had  never  seen  such  a  young  gentleman  in  all  his 
life,  that  he  had  never  laughed  so  much  since  he 
was  born,  and  that  his  sides  still  ached.  He  couldn't 
keep  his  feet,  the  old  man  said,  for  thirty  consecutive 
seconds,  and  at  the  very  start  he  slid  clean  over  his 
head  into  a  deep  pool.  Dick  had  apparently  spent 
the  morning  upside  down  in  water  of  all  depths. 
126 


{ 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

Being  a  humorist,  I  half  suspect  he  appreciated  the 
paroxysms  of  mirth  into  which  he  threw  the  old 
keeper,  and  once  wet  through  continued  to  indulge  him 
by  a  series  of  subtly  planned  disasters.  Anyway,  it 
was  his  first  and  last  day's  fishing  till  the  occasion,  years 
later,  to  which  all  this  is  trending.  He  did,  to  be  sure, 
insist  on  coming  up  the  Dysynni  as  bearer  of  my  net 
and  basket  one  morning,  but  very  soon  disappeared, 
and  incidentally  with  the  landing-net,  which  he  carried 
over  various  mountain-tops  till  eventide. 

Now  there  was  a  very  sedate,  retired,  and  solitary 
Anglo-Indian  staying  at  Towyn  that  summer.  He 
was  very  fond  of  fishing,  though  he  affected,  I  think, 
other  waters,  and  we  knew  him  but  slightly.  He 
was  also  a  keen  bass-fisher,  which  we  were  not.  For 
the  Dysynni,  it  should  be  said,  after  lingering  in  broad, 
irregular,  tidal  reaches  about  Towyn,  draws  together 
under  the  railway  bridge,  and  with  brisk  current  once 
more  in  the  guise  of  a  river,  races  for  a  few  hundred 
yards  swiftly  to  the  sea.  This  spot  at  nightfall  was 
the  bass-fisher's  haunt.  The  fish  here  ran  about  five 
pounds  a-piece,  and  were  angled  for  with  a  fearsome 
fly  (so-called)  about  the  size  of  a  water-wagtail,  and 
armed  with  one  or  more  hooks  that  would  have  gone 
through  your  arm  and  out  at  the  other  side.  It  was 
not  a.  dry  fly  !  They  fished  it  wet — generally  in  the 
gloaming  and  into  the  dark  when  the  tide  served. 
This  stretch  between  the  bridge  and  the  sea  was  short, 
and  if  half  a  dozen  sportsmen  were  at  work  together 
the  hurtling  of  their  respective  missiles  through  the  air, 
I  have  been  told,  for  I  never  joined  their  ranks,  made 
intimidating  music  in  the  ear  of  the  next  in  the  pro- 

127 


CLEAR  WATERS 

cession.  They  were  all  of  course  safe  men,  but  in  the 
dark  anything  may  happen,  so  I  was  rather  surprised 
one  morning  at  being  accosted  in  the  street  by  the 
grave  Anglo-Indian. 

*What  a  nice  young  fellow  that  is  staying  with 
you.' 

*  Yes,'  I  said,  *  he  's  a  capital  chap.' 

*  He  has  kindly  promised  to  come  out  bass-fishing 
with  me  to-night.' 

'  Going  with  you  ?  Surely  not ;  he  never  fished  in 
his  Hfe '  (the  sole  occasion  above-mentioned  did  not 
seem  worth  allusion). 

*  So  he  told  me,  but  I  have  promised  to  lend  him 
a  rod  and  tackle,  and  it 's  pleasant  to  have  a  com- 
panion out  there  at  night  and  for  the  walk  each  way.' 

'  Undoubtedly,  but  do  leave  it  at  that,  and  don't 
put  a  rod  into  his  hands  whatever  you  do,  or  he  '11 
smash  it,  if  it 's  smashable ;  but  if  you  don't  mind 
that,  on  no  account  go  within  fifty  yards  of  him. 
He  will  hook  you  to  a  dead  certainty,  and  possibly 
even  drown  you.'  I  felt  bound  to  put  it  rather 
strongly,  though  I  couldn't  of  course  justify  these 
portentous  forebodings.  But  I  knew  my  young  friend 
pretty  intimately  from  the  soles  of  his  boots  to  the  top 
of  his  head,  and  felt  absolutely  certain  that  this  Anglo- 
Indian  would  somehow  rue  his  generous  but  reckless 
overtures.  But  he  only  smiled,  and  said  he  would  take 
good  care  of  himself. 

*  So  you  're  going  bass-fishing  with  Colonel  Lucknow, 
are  you,  to-night  ? ' 

Rather  shamefacedly  Dick  admitted  the  soft  im- 
peachment. For  he  had  railed  at  the  gentle  art  ever 
128 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

since  he  had  played  the  porpoise  in  the  mountain  stream 
seven  years  back.  Nor  had  our  luck  so  far  in  the  few 
days  of  his  stay  been  such  as  to  inspire  an  unbeliever, 
for  which  last  I  was  devoutly  thankful.  But  it  trans- 
pired that  he  had  seen  some  very  big  bass  brought  in 
the  night  before,  the  size  of  which  and  the  Anglo- 
Indian's  amiable  solicitations  had  touched  his  ardent 
temperament.  I  have  noticed  that  the  unbeHever, 
if  otherwise  a  sportsman,  is  often  warmed  up  at  the 
notion  of  a  big  fish.  A  tarpon  or  a  sturgeon  appeals 
to  him,  which  of  course  only  emphasises  his  hopeless 
state  of  mind.  Relative  tackle  means  nothing  to  him. 
He  sniifs  a  sort  of  personal  encounter  in  the  deep — a 
kind  of  pull-devil,  pull-baker  business,  a  tug-of-war.  So 
the  solemn  colonel  and  Dick  passed  out  into  the  gloam- 
ing that  evening,  each  armed  with  a  big  rod  and  the 
fearsome  projectiles  with  which  they  were  to  thrash  the 
dark  waters  of  the  out-flow.  I  watched  them  out  of 
sight,  as  there  was  something  so  deHghtfully  incon- 
gruous in  the  spectacle,  and  then  settled  comfortably 
down  before  the  fire,  thanking  heaven  I  wasn't  the 
colonel. 

It  now  becomes  imperative  to  relate  that  the  warrior 
in  question  always  wore  a  soft  hat  of  slightly  eccentric 
make  and  fashioned  of  some  peculiar  rough  material, 
which  was  almost  obscured  by  the  flies  in  it.  Most 
of  us  have  a  few  on  our  headgear  when  on  the  war-path, 
but  the  colonel's  hat  had  become  quite  one  of  the  jests 
of  the  Towyn  season.  We  opined  that  he  dispensed 
with  a  fly-book  and  carried  his  whole  outfit  on  his 
head.  It  was  a  sort  of  fore-and-aft  contrivance  with 
a  little  tuft  upon  the  top.  Now  it  may  have  been  ten 
I  129 


CLEAR  WATERS 

o'clock  or  thereabouts  when  a  rap  at  the  window  an- 
nounced Dick's  return,  and  proceeding  to  open  the 
front  door  I  was  quite  relieved  to  see  the  colonel  with 
him  and  apparently  sound.  I  couldn't  set  down  the 
precise  reason  for  this  sense  of  relief,  because  the  reader 
never  knew  Dick,  and  there  probably  was  never  any  one 
quite  like  him.  But  as  the  older  man  with  rather  a 
depressed  good-night  went  off  into  the  darkness 
towards  his  lodgings,  I  noticed  that  he  had  some- 
thing like  a  white  napkin  tied  round  his  head,  and 
then  I  instinctively  knew  there  had  been  an  adventure 
of  some  sort.  Of  course  there  had  !  '  Dick,'  said  I 
when  we  got  into  the  sitting-room,  *  what  have  you 
done  to  the  colonel  ? ' 

And  then  the  long  pent-up  humour  of  the  thing 
broke  forth,  and  the  incorrigible  youth  sat  on  the  horse- 
hair sofa  and  shouted  with  laughter  for  about  five 
minutes.  When  he  had  done  I  said  sternly,  '  What 
does  that  bandage  round  his  head  mean  ?  ' 

'  Lord  !  it  isn't  a  bandage,  it 's  only  a  knotted 
handkerchief  instead  of  his  hat.' 

*  Where  's  his  hat  ?  '  said  L 

*  Half-way  to  Ireland  by  this  time.' 
'  What !    the  hat  ? ' 

*  Yes,  of  course,  the  hat,  flies  and  all,'  said  the  in- 
corrigible one,  falling  into  another  unseemly  burst  of 
mirth. 

And  then  in  due  course  I  learned  that  Dick's  beastly 
fly,  if  such  a  projectile  can  be  called  a  fly,  in  one  of  his 
wild,  untutored  whirlings  had  fastened  in  the  colonel's 
hat  as  it  lunged  forward,  lifted  it  deftly  off  his  head, 
and  laid  it  on  the  surface  of  the  dark,  rapid  waters  of 
130 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

the  Dysynni  where  they  rushed  into  the  deep.  Not 
a  living  man  in  Great  Britain  could  have  done  that 
by  accident  except  Dick.  And  if  my  readers  can 
think  I  can  tell  such  a  foolish  tale  if  it  hadn't  happened 
exactly  as  related,  I  cannot  help  it. 

'  Did  you  get  any  fish  ?  '  said  I. 

'  Not  a  fish,'  said  he  ;  '  this  is  my  second  attempt, 
and  it  will  be  my  last.' 

'  That  is  fortunate  for  your  friends,'  I  replied. 

I  saw  the  colonel  the  next  day,  and  he  was  very 
depressed.  He  said  that  at  least  ten  shillings'  worth 
of  flies,  three  casts,  and  his  favourite  hat,  made  to 
order,  had  gone  out  to  sea. 

He  said  further  that  his  opinion  of  my  friend  as  an 
entertaining  companion  had  suffered  no  whit,  but  as 
a  fishing  partner  my  estimate  of  him  was  only  too 
true.  They  had  fished  of  necessity  more  or  less  along- 
side of  one  another,  and  so  long  as  it  was  dusk  he 
managed  to  elude  the  wild  whistling  flights  of  his 
neighbour's  fly.  But  when  it  grew  dark,  what  with 
the  constant  eloquence,  sociability,  and  reckless  pro- 
cedure of  the  other  he  was  compelled  to  take  his 
chance.  '  It  might  have  been  worse,'  he  said,  '  for 
again  and  again  he  grazed  my  ear,  and  when  the  blow 
fell  it  just  took  the  tufty  button  of  my  hat  and  swept 
it  clear  into  the  river.  I  wish  I  had  taken  your  advice, 
but  we  live  and  learn,  though  I  couldn't  have  imagined 
there  was  such  a  feather-headed  chap  on  earth.' 

Poor  Dick,  he  died  this  long  time  ago,  but  I  still  use 
to  this  day  the  fly-book  he  gave  me  in  his  prompt 
disgust  with  fishing,  with  his  name  scrawled  in  a  boyish 
hand  upon  the  parchment.     He  just  missed  being  a 

131 


CLEAR  WATERS 

genius.  Nature,  I  am  quite  certain,  meant  him  for 
one,  and  then  disgusted  with  his  utter  indifference  to 
her  approaches,  changed  her  mind.  I  have  a  printed 
metrical,  pseudo-classical  drama  of  his  written  when 
he  was  twenty,  and  staged  amateurly  in  the  town  hall 
of  a  considerable  provincial  town  with  success.  The 
cadence  and  the  language  suggest  a  precocious  youth, 
soaked  in  the  classics  and  the  English  poets.  But  a 
brief  fourth-form  career  at  a  public  school  and  a  year 
or  two  of  the  same  stamp  with  tutors  brought  his 
education  to  an  end  at  sixteen,  and  was  all  he  ever  had 
or,  it  must  be  owned,  he  seemed  to  want.  But  for  a 
desultory  dip,  perhaps,  into  Shakespeare  or  Tennyson, 
I  don't  believe  he  opened  another  book  worth  reading 
for  the  rest  of  his  Hfe.  Very,  very  occasionally,  he 
wrote  an  article  or  poem  which  was  generally  accepted 
in  rather  fastidious  quarters.  He  came  into  some 
money,  and  men  unworthy  to  black  his  boots  Hved  on 
it,  till  he  died — and  that  was  all !  The  only  thing  he 
could  ever  stick  to  was  the  back  of  a  buck-jumper. 
There  was  a  good  deal,  I  fancy,  of  the  Lindsay  Gordon 
about  him  without  the  maturity.  But  there  is  infinite 
allowance  to  be  made  for  a  brilliant,  lovable,  im- 
petuous nature,  born  by  some  freak  into  a  gloomy, 
rigid,  Calvinistic  family,  and  of  course  destroyed  by  it. 
I  have  implied  that  the  lodgings  in  bygone  Towyn, 
select  though  it  may  have  been,  were  Spartan.  Our 
landlady,  Mrs.  Jellybag  Jones,  made  up  in  a  measure  for 
the  meagreness  of  her  accommodation,  the  element- 
ary nature  of  her  cooking,  and  the  rather  dispropor- 
tionate scale  of  her  terms,  by  her  personal  quaHties. 
She  was  cheery  and  motherly  to  a  degree,  like  most 
132 


THE  WATERS  OF  CADER  IDRIS 

Welsh  women,  particularly  stout  ones,  and  we  were 
all  fairly  young  then.  Though  low  in  stature,  yet 
weighing  eighteen  stone,  she  did  all  the  work  of  the 
house,  and  her  wheezings  as  she  went  about  it  cut  us 
to  the  heart.  But  we  were  comforted  by  the  thought 
that  she  had  ten  months  in  which  to  recuperate.  She 
used  to  laugh  betimes  uproariously,  and  during  this 
mirthful  process  shook  all  over  like  the  condiment 
after  which  we  christened  her,  to  distinguish  her  from 
all  the  other  Mrs.  Joneses  with  whom  our  friends  and 
acquaintances  were  quartered.  We  were  great  friends, 
and  went  back  to  her,  I  think,  for  three  summers, 
though  we  often  wondered  why,  except  that  there 
wasn't  very  much  choice.  Occasionally,  but  rarely,  she 
flew  into  a  most  frightful  passion  with  one  or  other 
of  us,  all  about  nothing.  These  paroxysms  lasted  about 
thirty  seconds  and  alarmed  us  dreadfully,  not  on  our 
own  account  but  on  hers,  for  we  thought  she  would 
burst.  We  were  seldom  able,  even  by  turning  the 
matter  over  carefully  among  ourselves,  to  arrive 
at  the  cause  of  these  explosions.  They  were  like 
frightful  thunderstorms  bursting  suddenly  from  a 
summer  sky.  She  would  be  apologising  for  them  in 
less  than  a  minute  from  the  first  scream  and  say  it 
was  her  Welsh  blood.  And  then  we  used  to  apologise 
for  things  we  had  never  said  or  intended  to  say,  and 
the  atmosphere  was  all  summer  again.  I  have  known 
much  of  Wales  since  those  days  and  hundreds  of  W^elsh 
people,  including  dozens  of  landladies,  and  never  knew 
one  whose  Welsh  blood  boiled  with  such  amazing 
celerity  and  on  such  slight  provocation  as  that  of 
Mrs.  Jellybag  Jones. 

133 


CLEAR  WATERS 

To  show  how  select  Towyn  was  in  those  good  old 
times,  and  how  justified  its  leading  citizen  was  in 
bewailing,  as  related,  its  after  decline,  we  were  suc- 
ceeded in  these  same  quarters  our  last  autumn  hy  a 
bishop,  and  a  very  distinguished  one  too,  with  all  his 
family,  though  to  be  sure  they  overflowed  into  the 
next  house.  I  had  the  privilege  of  meeting  his  lord- 
ship soon  afterwards,  and  naturally  inquired  how  he 
liked  Towyn,  not  venturing  to  tread  on  what  might 
have  been  the  unwelcome  subject  of  bed  and  board. 
He  told  me  that  personally  he  saw  nothing  of  the 
country,  as  he  was  indoors  all  the  time  hard  at  work  at 
a  magnum  opus  which  is  now  a  classic,  but  that  the  air 
suited  him  finely  for  his  purpose.  So  he  must  have 
seen  a  good  deal  of  Mrs.  Jellybag,  and  heard  more  of 
her  as  she  wheezed  about  the  house.  I  wonder  if 
she  gave  him  a  sample  of  her  Welsh  blood,  for  I  do 
not  think  that  the  bishop  had  a  protecting  Mrs. 
Proudie  by  his  side.  Possibly  the  awesomeness  of 
his  office  kept  even  the  Celtic  fluid  in  abeyance.  I 
never  saw  Mrs.  Jones  again,  but  I  expect  her  rent  went 
up  after  that  summer,  till  the  promenade  came  and 
shattered  the  aristocratic  reputation  of  Towyn,  so 
far  as  I  know,  for  good  and  all. 

But  for  situation,  for  fresh  breezes,  for  noble  inland 
prospects,  for  accessibility  to  glorious  scenes,  to  say 
nothing  of  its  river,  I  still  think  it  one  of  the  pleasant- 
est  spots  in  Wales  for  August  and  September. 


134 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 


V 
THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

I  ALWAYS  think  of  the  streams  of  the  Welsh 
Border,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  English  counties 
bordering  Mid  and  South  Wales,  as  in  a  class  by 
themselves.  This  is  in  part,  perhaps,  but  not  I  think 
wholly,  a  mere  personal  caprice,  come  of  frequent  in- 
tercourse with  them.  They  all  have  much  the  same 
characteristics,  and  as  a  group  come  midway,  as  it 
were,  between  the  frankly  impetuous  streams  of  Wales 
and  the  slow-moving  waters  east  of  the  Severn.  The 
Lugg,  the  Arrow,  and  the  Teme,  the  Monnow  and  the 
Honddu,  the  Corve,  the  Onny,  the  Rea,  and  the  little 
Camlad,  the  only  river  this  last  which  runs  from 
England  into  Wales,  may  be  accounted  a  fairly  ex- 
haustive list,  and  if  you  know  them  all  you  may 
consider  yourself  to  be  on  terms  of  tolerable  intimacy 
with  what  is  often  but  not  quite  accurately  designated 
the  Marches  of  Wales.  A  strong  family  likeness  runs 
through  them  all,  but  the  breed  is  one  of  quality,  not 
of  that  common  order  which  satisfies  folks  to  the  east 
of  the  Severn  and  south  of  the  Trent  and  artists  who 
cannot  paint  fast  waters.  The  fish,  too,  speaking 
broadly,  like  the  scenery,  come  midway  between  those 
of  Wales  and  of  the  slow  waters  of  low-pitched  Eng- 

135 


CLEAR  WATERS 

land,  and  average  from  a  quarter  to  three-quarters 
of  a  pound.  Though  essentially  wet-fly  rivers,  some 
of  them  are  excellent  for  dry-fly  fishing,  if  you  pre- 
fer that  method.  Practically  all  of  them  rise  in  the 
Welsh  mountains  and  carry  their  natal  impetuosity 
into  EngHsh  valleys,  whose  oftentimes  gentle  gradients 
succeed  in  partially  curbing  it  and  creating  that  com- 
promise between  the  rapid  and  slow  river  which  is 
the  ideal  of  many  trout  fishermen.  Lastly,  some  of 
them,  notably  the  Teme  and  Lugg,  are  also  natural 
grayling  rivers  of  the  first  order. 

As  an  item  of  useful  information  it  may  be  noted 
that  the  whole  of  them  are  preserved  by  owners, 
lessees  or  members  of  clubs.  There  is  very  little 
hotel  water  and  scarcely  any  free  or  association  fishing. 
I  have  myself  fished  here  and  there  at  different  times 
on  all  these  streams,  but  more  frequently  of  recent 
years  upon  the  Lugg,  though  more  often  to  be  sure  in 
quest  of  its  grayling,  rather  than  of  its  trout.  There 
is  probably  no  better  portion  of  the  Lugg  for  a  com- 
bination of  trout  and  grayling  than  those  pleasant 
reaches  by  which  it  winds  its  purling  way  from  the 
battlefield  of  Mortimer's  Cross  to  Leominster,  where 
it  meets  its  smaller  sister  the  Arrow.  It  is  strange 
that  its  upper  waters  should  have  been  the  scene  of  two 
historic  conflicts  :  the  greater  one  just  mentioned, 
which  seated  Edward  iv.  upon  the  throne  and  wrought 
such  havoc  among  the  Lancastrian  notables ;  and  that 
other  less  known  one  of  Pilleth,  which  ushers  in  the 
first  act  of  Shakespeare's  Henry  IV.  and  marked  the 
first  formidable  blow  of  the  'damned  Glendower.' 
For  the  Lugg,  like  the  Arrow,  rises  in  the  wild  moor- 
136 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

land  of  Radnor  forest,  and  thence  runs  down  towards 
Presteign,  a  babbling  alder-shaded  brook  in  a  narrow 
vale,  where  below  the  hill  of  Pilleth  Mortimer's  levies 
were  rolled  up  in  1400  by  the  Welsh,  and  eleven  hun- 
dred Herefordians  bit  the  dust.  Hence  came  spurring 
eastward  to  London  and  King  Henry  that  '  Post  from 
Wales  loaden  with  heavy  news.' 

On  leaving  Presteign  the  little  river  has  to  fight  its 
way  through  fine  uplifted  woody  hills,  to  thread  the 
bosky  gorges  of  Aymestry,  through  which  the  Yorkist 
army  marched  to  Mortimer's  Cross,  and  so  out  into 
the  pleasant  pastures  of  Hereford.  The  old  grey  tower 
of  Kingsland  church,  which  witnessed  the  fearful 
slaughter  of  that  sanguinary  day,  and  no  doubt  the 
heavenly  portents  which  ushered  in  its  fateful  morn, 
rises  significant  and  conspicuous  above  the  woods  and 
pastures  of  the  now  wide  opening  vale.  The  river 
seems  here  to  attune  itself  to  its  gentler  surround- 
ings, slipping  down  between  crumbling  red  sandstone 
banks  from  gravelly  run  to  rippling  pool,  and  thence  into 
interludes  of  quiet  and  deep  water.  Trees  overhang 
much  of  it  on  one  bank  or  the  other,  occasionally  on 
both,  and  as  wading  is  neither  customary  nor  desirable, 
the  fishing  has  generally  that  flavour  of  difficulty  about 
it  which  is  or  should  be  accounted  to  its  credit.  I 
doubt  if  there  is  a  better  bit  of  grayling  water  in  the 
kingdom  than  this,  or  one  where  they  rise  more  freely 
in  the  early  autumn  months.  No  worming  is  prac- 
tised here  as  on  the  Border  and  in  Yorkshire.  There 
is  no  occasion  for  it.  For  when  the  water  is 
clear  in  September  and  October,  no  matter  what  the 
wind's  quarter  or  what  like  the  day,  the  grayling  is 

137 


CLEAR  WATERS 

more  or  less  ready  to  take  the  fly,  and  certainly  no  flies 
that  I  for  my  part  ever  offer  them  or  have  seen  my 
friends  offer  are  more  effective  than  the  red-tag  and 
the  mid-blue. 

In  a  short  week  during  each  of  now  many  successive 
years  on  this  water,  it  is  curious  to  remember  when 
comparing  it  with  any  trouting  record,  that  half  a 
dozen  fish  is  the  nearest  to  a  blank  day  recorded  in 
my  journal.  And  the  Lugg  grayling  are  strong  and 
shapely,  averaging  like  its  trout  about  two  to  the 
pound.  No  reference  to  written  data,  however,  is 
needed  to  recall  many  a  good  basket  from  this  alluring 
stream.  Several  times  while  pursuing  my  homeward 
way  across  the  big  ox  pastures  to  a  certain  hospitable 
roof  upon  the  green  slopes  beyond,  I  have  been  thank- 
ful that  the  Lugg  is  not  a  wading  river,  and  that  the 
burden  of  waders  and  brogues  is  not  added  to  the 
burden  on  one's  back.  Once  or  twice  I  have  had  to 
cut  short  my  day  from  the  fact  that  my  tolerably 
capacious  creel  would  not  hold  another  fish.  And  it 
may  be  remembered  that  there  is  no  object  in  sparing 
grayling  whatever  might  be  desirable  in  some  waters 
with  regard  to  trout.  They  can  always  more  than 
maintain  themselves  against  any  onslaught  of  the  fly- 
fisher.  Moreover,  where  the  trout  shares  their  water 
one  feels  that  the  more  grayling  fairly  killed  the  better, 
as  the  less  noble  tenants  of  the  stream  are  apt  in  this 
case  to  be  over  pushful  towards  their  betters.  In 
the  north,  as  we  shall  see,  the  grayling  has  in  this 
way  worked  havoc.  But  I  think  in  streams  like  those 
of  Herefordshire,  where  nature  has  placed  these  kin- 
dred breeds  side  by  side,  she  somehow  preserves  the 
138 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

balance.  Still  a  vague  and  no  doubt  erroneous  feeling 
that  a  captured  grayling  makes  room  for  an  extra 
trout  removes  any  compunction  to  basketing  just  as 
many  as  you  can  catch,  or  on  those  occasions  hinted 
at,  as  you  can  carry — even  to  keeping  the  little  ones. 

Thymallus  is  a  queer  customer.  No  one  who  knows 
him,  so  far  as  he  allows  himself  to  be  known,  denies 
that.  He  is  in  truth  rather  a  mysterious  beast.  It 
will  generally  be  noted  in  technical  works  on  angling 
that  the  wise  men  write  with  intimacy  about  trout. 
But  if  you  read  a  chapter  on  grayling  a  little  between 
the  lines,  you  will  see  at  once  that  the  writers  are  not 
on  nearly  such  frank  terms  with  their  subject  and 
do  not  pretend  to  analyse  it  so  exhaustively.  There 
is,  in  short,  a  good  deal  left  to  the  imagination,  and 
that  is  quite  honest,  for  it  is  the  only  thing  to  be  done. 
I  am  not  of  course  alluding  to  the  life  and  habits  of 
the  grayling,  but  to  its  impulses  and  attitude  towards 
the  angler  on  the  bank.  For  my  part  I  have  assuredly 
nothing  fresh  or  original  to  contribute.  The  more 
grayling  I  catch  the  less  I  seem  to  know  about  the 
workings  of  their  mind,  and  while  correcting  this  very 
chapter  for  the  press  I  have  yet  further  to  admit 
that  I  know  less  about  the  grayling  than  I  thought  I 
did  when  I  wrote  it  but  a  few  months  since  !  As 
practical  jokers,  for  instance,  the  trout  cannot  touch 
his  prolific  cousin,  though  happily  this  keen  sense  of 
humour  does  not  seem  to  extend  itself  to  the  denizens 
of  the  Lugg.  I  have  fished  nearly  all  day  upon  the 
Till  and  risen  hundreds  of  grayling  to  every  known 
grayling  fly,  and  except  by  a  rare  and  occasional 
accident  never  touched  one.    And  what  is  more,  I  have 

139 


CLEAR  WATERS 

come  to  realise  that  such  a  desirable  consummation 
either  with  wet  or  dry  fly  was  virtually  impossible. 
A  friend  of  mine,  a  very  fine  dry-fly  fisherman, 
tells  me  he  has  had  precisely  the  same  experiences 
upon  the  Berkshire  Lambourn.  Now  trout  couldn't 
do  this  if  they  tried,  not  keep  it  up,  that  is  to 
say,  for  hours  and  hours.  Small  trout,  to  be  sure, 
can  be  very  persistent  and  exasperating  at  this  game, 
but  they  all  take  risks  and  are  not  nearly  as  expert  in 
making  themselves  quite  safe.  You  will  have  a  poor 
dozen  or  two  at  anyrate  after  a  day's  entertainment 
of  this  kind,  and  though  you  may  feel  very  ruffled, 
and  very  hot,  and  very  tired  when  it  is  over,  your 
state  of  mind  will  be  nothing  to  the  exasperation 
aroused  by  a  couple  of  hours  of  it  with  three  to  the 
pound  grayling.  I  remember  at  my  first  encounter 
with  this  mood  on  the  Till,  after  being  wrought  up 
into  a  state  of  high  fever,  resorting  to  the  floating 
fly  and  killing  a  fish  on  the  very  first  two  presen- 
tations of  it.  *  Now,  my  friends,  I  am  going  to  take 
it  out  of  you,'  was  my  triumphant  ejaculation,  for 
they  had  probably  never  been  introduced  to  this  form 
of  presentation  in  their  Uves.  But  it  was  no  good. 
The  word  was  evidently  passed  up  stream  and  down 
that  some  devilment  was  on,  and  they  flicked  con- 
temptuously and  harmlessly  at  both  wet  and  dry  fly 
for  the  rest  of  the  day. 

But  the  Lugg  grayling  never  do  this  sort  of  thing. 
They  come  very  short  at  times,  of  course,  which  is 
within  their  rights,  and  occasionally  they  do  not 
come  at  all,  but  they  have  not  the  diabolic  sense 
of  humour  of  these  others.  Perhaps,  after  all,  it  is 
140 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

a  characteristic  of  the  imported  grayling  and  un- 
developed in  the  indigenous  species  ?  Indeed,  it  is 
hardly  too  much  to  say  that  in  September,  providing 
the  water  is  clear  and  not  too  high  (a  condition  they 
abominate),  grayling  are  always  to  be  caught  upon  the 
Lugg.  Till  almost  this  moment  of  going  to  press,  I 
should  have  said  with  confidence  that  whether  the 
wind  is  east  or  west,  warm  or  cold,  whether  the  skies 
are  grey  or  sunny,  you  might  count  at  the  worst  upon 
a  basket  of,  say  five  pounds,  including  a  pound  or  so 
of  little  fellows  filling  in  the  chinks,  and  retained  for 
reasons  already  stated.  I  never  fish  dry  for  grayling 
myself,  as  it  is  I  think  seldom  necessary.  On  the  other 
hand,  my  friend  and  host  on  the  river  usually  does,  as  he 
prefers  it  for  its  own  sake.  A  grayling  doesn't  gener- 
ally lie  near  the  surface  like  a  trout,  but  dashes  up  at 
the  fly  from  near  the  bottom.  Indeed,  it  is  an  axiom 
on  the  Lugg  that  the  bigger  grayling,  those  between 
one  and  two  pounds,  are  more  often  caught  by  a  deep- 
sunk  fly  fished  down  stream  in  the  heavy  pools.  But 
the  best  ordinary  grayhng  water  is  in  the  smooth, 
gentle  glides  from  two  to  three  feet  deep  which  are 
so  abundant  on  the  Lugg  between  the  pools  and  stony 
shallows. 

It  is  no  use  pretending  that  the  grayling  is  as  shy 
or  as  hard  to  catch  as  the  trout,  when  he  means  taking, 
for  he  is  not  by  a  long  way.  You  may  often,  for 
example,  see  them  lying  in  clear  water  and  catch  two 
or  three  with  a  wet  fly.  When  they  are  really  on  the 
take,  too,  you  may  fish  a  streamy  pool  down  and 
without  moving  kill  three  or  four  big  grayling,  the 
disturbance  made  in  playing  the  first  victim  or  victims 

141 


CLEAR  WATERS 

having  no  deterrent  effect  on  the  others.  This  in- 
difference is  of  course  much  modified  in  clear,  gliding 
water,  but  even  then  it  is  occasionally  surprising  how 
callous  to  disturbance  a  matured  fish  shows  himself. 
I  well  remember  how  the  grayling  in  a  pool  on  the 
Teme,  in  the  very  last  ten  minutes  of  a  long,  weary, 
fruitless  day  after  trout,  saved  in  a  measure  the  situa- 
tion and  transformed  a  practically  empty  basket  into 
one  that  at  any  rate  turned  out  handsomely  upon  a  dish. 
It  was  in  that,  for  anglers,  and  indeed  for  some 
other  people,  awful  summer  of  191 1,  when  I  happened 
to  be  spending  most  of  July  in  Ludlow,  a  sojourn  I 
had  much  looked  forward  to  as  incidentally  affording 
opportunities  of  trouting  in  many  excellent  and  not  un- 
familiar streams.  Among  others  was  Lord  Plymouth's 
admirable  water  on  the  Teme  above  Bromfield, 
and  never  having  sampled  it,  I  was  looking,  for- 
ward all  the  more  keenly  to  making  its  acquaintance. 
What  a  summer  that  was  !  Yet  even  in  that  gorgeous 
June  before  the  parching  time  had  come  and  turned 
the  thirsty  land  to  dust  and  ashes,  the  mayfly  had 
more  than  half  cheated  us  on  the  Lugg.  Its  waters 
had  already  dropped  deplorably  low,  and  the  trout, 
failing  the  expected  mayfly,  regarded  our  smaller  lures 
with  exasperating  indifference.  A  wet  July  and 
fresh  water  and  revived  fish  seemed  a  certainty  after 
all  these  rainless  weeks.  But  not  a  bit  of  it !  Every 
one  remembers  that  July,  so  recent  as  it  is,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  succeeding  August.  Many  of  us, 
familiar  with  an  American  summer,  felt  for  the  first 
time  in  our  lives  that  we  were  breathing  and  feeling 
day  and  night  an  American  atmosphere  in  Great 
142 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

Britain,  while  the  landscape  took  on  the  colouring  of 
Pennsylvania  or  Virginia  in  a  dry  season.  It  had  done 
so,  to  be  sure,  in  the  five  months'  drought  of  1893, 
now  forgotten  except  by  elderly  farmers  and  anglers, 
but  then  without  the  great  heat.  It  was  not  only,  as 
it  so  turned  out,  that  July  fishing  would  have  been 
absurd ;  that  often  happens,  but  the  very  idea  had  a 
sense  of  repulsion  about  it  that  I  never  felt  before  in 
England  and  never  expect  to  feel  again.  One  heard, 
and  heard  truly,  that  trout  and  salmon  were  dying  in 
some  rivers.  191 3  in  Wales  and  the  Marches  was  bad 
enough,  but  what  water  there  was  left  at  least  re- 
mained cool.  The  shrunken  streams  of  191 1  looked 
positively  oily,  and  had  not  been  washed  out  for  months. 
I  felt  I  could  not  have  brought  myself  to  eat  a  fish 
out  of  the  briskest  of  them  as  the  parching  summer 
dragged  on  its  semi-tropical,  un-English  course  into 
the  autumn.  My  last  day  in  the  neighbourhood,  the 
second  of  August,  had  come,  and  not  a  line  had  I  even 
dreamed  of  wetting.  But  I  was  so  anxious  to  have 
a  look  at  this  portion  of  the  Teme  that  I  overcame  my 
distaste  and  determined  to  exercise  my  long-hoarded 
privilege.  Trout  were  the  ostensible  object  of  pur- 
suit, for  the  grayling  were  not  yet  quite  ready. 

It  proved,  of  course,  rather  a  pitiful  business :  the 
jaded,  cracking  meadow-banks,  the  tired  foliage,  the 
stuffy  air,  the  thin,  warm  streams,  the  weary,  lifeless 
pools,  the  insufferable  flies  that  made  any  rest  for 
the  weary  angler  impossible  even  with  a  pipe.  At  the 
end  of  a  longish  day  of  hard  fishing,  for  the  simple 
reason  that  repose  was  impossible,  I  had  as  the  result 
a  brace  of  half-pound  trout,  and  considered  that  I  was 

H3 


CLEAR  WATERS 

fortunate  in  having  even  so  much  in  the  basket.  The 
sun  was  just  setting,  and  as  I  had  some  miles  to  cycle 
home,  I  was  reeling  up  my  line,  thinking  what  a  fool  I 
was  at  my  time  of  life  to  go  toiling  all  day  long  in  such 
an  atmosphere  at  such  a  hopeless  job,  when  I  noticed 
there  was  one  nice  rocky  pool  still  stirring  quite  briskly 
just  below,  the  very  last,  as  it  so  happened,  on  the 
water  there  available.  As  I  could  spare  another  five 
minutes  I  strolled  down  and  cast  wearily  and  mechani- 
cally into  its  head.  Almost  immediately,  to  my 
amazement,  a  good  fish  took  me,  and  for  a  few  seconds 
I  thought  I  was  into  a  trout,  but  it  turned  out  to 
be  a  three-quarter-pound  grayling.  To  shorten  my 
story,  I  took  seven  grayling,  one  after  another,  in  that 
rather  Hmited  pool,  and  as  they  were  all  about  the  same 
size,  and  were  now  legally  just  in  season,  they  were 
under  such  parlous  circumstances  extraordinarily  wel- 
come. For  I  was  in  no  mood  to  be  critical.  It  isn't 
often  given  to  one,  after  say  seven  hours  and  three- 
quarters'  fishing,  to  turn  a  one-pound  into  a  six-pound 
basket  in  the  next  quarter  of  an  hour,  and  in  the  very 
last  fishable  spot ! 

As  half  an  hour  later,  at  dusk,  I  crossed  the  stiU 
sweltering,  drowsy  market-place  to  my  quarters,  I 
encountered  a  local  friend  and  expert  angler  standing 
in  light  attire  and  trying  to  cool  off  after  a  hot  day  in 
his  office.  *  Fishing,'  said  he  ;  '  good  Lord  !  I  needn't 
ask  if  you  've  done  anything.'  I  happened  to  be  carry- 
ing the  basket  in  my  hand,  and  passed  the  strap  into 
his  outstretched  grasp.  Down  went  his  arm,  of 
course,  with  the  quite  respectable  weight,  and  out  of 
his  mouth  proceeded  some  brief  emphatic  testimony, 
144 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

to  his  frank  amazement.  It  was  getting  dark,  and 
when  he  opened  the  Ud,  as  I  had  put  the  trout  at  the 
top,  he  took  the  rest  for  granted,  for  the  grayUng  had 
hardly  yet  come  into  consideration.  '  Confound  it ! ' 
he  said,  *  you  must  be  a  conjurer.'  And  being  the 
professor  he  was,  he  may  well  have  been  staggered 
seeing  the  abnormal  fishing  famine  that  then  prevailed. 
I  left  it  at  that,  resumed  the  basket,  said  good-night, 
and  passed  on  in  a  state  of  semi-exhaustion  to  much- 
needed  food  and  repose.  I  didn't  see  my  friend  again, 
as  I  departed  next  day.  We  had  constantly  shot  in 
company  in  old  days,  but  never  fished  together,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  his  opinion  of  my  prowess  in  the  latter 
department  is  of  a  most  unduly  exalted  kind.  The 
incident  was  the  more  curious  as  the  grayling  isn't 
much  of  an  evening  fish.  The  morning,  even  in 
warm  weather,  is  usually  his  most  responsive  time. 

Ludlow  and  the  Teme  are  associated  in  my  mind 
with  another  pleasant,  and  indeed  much  pleasanter, 
dry-weather  surprise.  It  was  some  five  years  before 
the  trifling  incident  just  related,  when  I  was  staying 
in  that  delightful  and,  as  I  always  maintain,  aestheti- 
cally unrivalled  town,  during  a  hot  and  dry  August. 
Fishing,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  was  not  greatly  in  my 
mind  on  this  occasion.  Nor,  indeed,  is  that  sulky 
month  calculated  to  stir  an  angler's  «cravings,  at  any 
rate  outside  a  mountain  or  a  chalk-stream  country. 
Nor  again  did  I  at  that  time  know  personally  any  of 
the  surrounding  waters.  Moreover,  the  neighbour- 
hood of  Ludlow  is  so  rich  in  scenes  of  natural  beauty, 
and  in  antiquities  of  abounding  interest,  that  if  you 
are  anything  at  all  besides  a  fisherman  there  is  Uttle 

K  145 


CLEAR  WATERS 

cause  to  quarrel  with  fine  summer  weather.  On  this 
occasion  we  found  ourselves  in  the  ordinary  course  of 
such  things  quartered  beneath  the  roof  of  anything 
but  an  ordinary  couple.  The  man  had  been  a  shoe- 
maker, but  any  one  further  removed  from  the  con- 
ventional notion  of  that  sedentary,  radically  inclined 
type  of  humanity  I  never  met.  His  wife,  a  strong, 
dark,  rather  masterful  woman,  had  been  a  substantial 
farmer's  daughter.  They  were,  as  in  due  course 
transpired,  a  quite  devoted  but  childless  couple,  and 
at  that  time,  with  the  aid,  I  think,  of  a  little  com- 
petency, lived  by  letting  lodgings.  These  last  were 
redeemed  from  some  obvious  disadvantages  by  the 
civiHsing  atmosphere  of  much  good  old  furniture  and 
a  most  glorious  view  from  the  window  right  up  the 
valley  to  the  Stretton  hills.  To  be  frank,  we  were  a 
Httle  put  off  by  the  lady  till  we  recognised  the  sterling 
qualities  that  lay  behind  her  rather  disconcerting 
bluntness ;  while  our  landlord,  who  was  both  modest 
and  gracious,  so  rarely  emerged  from  the  subterranean 
quarters  which  they  inhabited  beneath  our  feet  that 
it  was  a  little  time  before  we  discovered  his  qualities 
— and  hers.  The  fact  was  that  both  of  them,  as  I 
afterwards  found,  were  consumed  with  a  passion  for 
everything  associated  with  country  life,  though  now 
caged,  cabined,  and  confined  in  the  rather  uncongenial 
atmosphere  of  narrow  precincts  in  a  country  town. 
The  man  was  then  in  somewhat  indifferent  health, 
and  we  were  sensibly  touched  by  the  way  in  which 
the  strong  and,  to  us,  offhand  lady  took  the  burdens 
of  life  off  his  hands. 

Now  it  so  happened  that  I  had  been  granted  a  couple 
146 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

of  days,  whenever  I  chose  to  take  them,  in  the  Downton 
Castle  water  on  the  Teme — no  little  of  a  privilege,  as 
I  afterwards  realised,  and  in  those  days,  at  any  rate,  not 
very  readily  conceded.  I  knew  nothing  at  all  of  the 
water,  and  in  a  persistently  dry  August,  which  showed 
no  sign  of  a  change,  held  my  prospective  advantages 
somewhat  cheaply.  However,  it  was  but  ordinarily 
dry  weather,  not  an  American  summer,  as  in  the  case 
of  191 1,  so  after  a  few  days  I  thought  I  would  make 
my  first  trial  of  the  water,  and  at  any  rate  explore  the 
river.  It  was  only  when  I  disclosed  to  them  the  fact 
of  my  permit  and  my  intentions  that  I  came  to  realise 
the  true  inwardness  of  my  landlord  and  his  spouse,  or, 
I  should  rather  say,  of  my  landlady  and  her  husband. 
The  one  ceased  to  be  the  rather  blunt  personage 
who  took  orders  for  meals,  laid  the  table,  and  pre- 
sented the  bill ;  the  other  changed  altogether  from 
the  gentle  being  who  crept  up  from  the  basement 
occasionally  for  a  few  seconds  with  an  armful  of 
extremely  well-cleaned  boots.  Both  in  short  got 
pleasurably  excited,  and  I  discovered  that  not  only  was 
the  man  a  keen  angler,  as  well  as  most  other  kindred 
things,  but  that  the  lady  was  too.  Nor  was  this  all, 
for  both  of  them,  through  some  keeper  connection, 
had  actually  fished  this  sacred  water  many  times  in 
former  days.  The  atmosphere  now  lightened  all  over 
the  house.  Domestic  things  went  cheerily  instead  of 
rather  drowsily.  I  might,  perhaps,  be  a  duffer  they 
thought,  but  I  was  at  any  rate  a  fisherman. 

My  rod  had  hitherto  been  concealed,  I  think,  among 
sticks,  golf  clubs,  and  umbrellas,  and  other  accessories 
not  unpacked.     It  was  indeed  pretty  hopeless  weather 

H7 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  the  most  hopeless  month.  But  the  quality  of  the 
fishing  was  such,  my  friends  opined,  that  even  a  be- 
nighted stranger  from  a  far  country — for  it  is  thus 
the  locals  are  apt  to  rate  one — might  pick  up  a  fish  or 
two.  The  excellent  couple  gave  me  quite  a  send-off. 
The  good  man,  full  of  new-born  zeal,  strapped  my 
waders,  brogues,  and  rod  on  to  the  bicycle  himself,  and 
the  lady  showed  more  personal  interest  in  cutting 
sandwiches  than  she  had  ever  done  in  serving  up 
dinner  for  four  people,  though  the  dinners  were  all 
right.  And  they  both  stood  at  the  door  at  my  de- 
parture and  bestowed  their  blessings,  so  to  speak,  on 
my  enterprise.  Excellent  souls,  their  hearts,  of  course, 
went  with  me,  and  they  would  both  have  given  their 
eyes  to  have  been  in  my  place.  I  felt  I  must  do  some- 
thing to  justify  all  this  fervour,  though  there  seemed 
mighty  little  prospect  of  it.  In  fact,  I  felt  something 
of  a  fool  thus  loaded  up  for  fishing  on  such  a  day,  with 
a  bright  August  sun  above  my  head  and  two  inches 
of  dust  on  the  road  beneath  my  feet.  In  such  self- 
conscious  mood,  I  fancied  I  could  detect  a  pitying 
smile  on  the  face  of  every  wayfarer  above  a  tramp  that 
passed  me  on  the  Shrewsbury  road,  and  was  quite 
reUeved  to  turn  off  at  Bromfield  and  pursue  the  less- 
frequented  route  that  follows  the  high  ground  above 
the  vaUey  of  the  Teme  to  Leintwardine — name 
famiHar  enough  in  angling  gossip  and  literature  for  its 
famous  fishing  club.  I  had  got  my  bearings  from 
my  hosts,  but  it  is  a  difficult  country  on  first 
acquaintance,  the  hills  are  high  and  the  vale  woody 
and  deep ;  but  eventually  I  found  my  way  on  foot 
down  to  the  bottom  of  the  preserve  marked  by  an 
148 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

abandoned  mill,  and  in  some  broken  water  there  at 
once  killed  a  half-pound  trout. 

Moving  up  I  soon  found  myself  in  the  castle  park, 
and  upon  characteristic  Teme  water,  ill  adapted  to 
a  bright  August  day — thin  shallows  and  long,  glassy 
pools,  with  no  sign  of  a  fish  moving.  I  was  a  little 
sad  when,  after  an  hour  or  two  of  bootless  endeavour, 
I  sat  down  to  eat  my  hostess's  carefully  made  sand- 
wiches on  the  bridge  at  the  top  of  the  park.  I  could 
see  nothing  ahead  of  me,  for  the  river  came  breaking 
with  refreshing  energy  out  of  a  densely  wooded 
gorge  just  above.  It  was  in  the  afternoon  when  I 
actually  got  up  into  this  tangle,  that  I  began  to  under- 
stand my  entertainers'  enthusiasm,  and  when  I  began 
to  catch  fish  I  understood  it  stiU  more.  This  is 
assuredly  a  wonderful  mile  or  so  for  a  gentle  purling, 
rippling  river  like  the  Teme,  and  seems  nothing  less 
than  a  freak  of  nature.  For  leaving  the  placid  streams 
and  pools  of  Leintwardine  the  Teme  has  here  to 
force  its  way  through  a  high  limestone  ridge,  and  is 
transformed  for  the  time  into  a  Welsh  mountain 
river ;  plunging  over  rocks,  seething  in  dark  pools, 
spreading  out  again  into  wide  but  fishable  shallows, 
broken  by  long  ledges  into  tempting  eddies,  or  again 
gliding  swift  and  smooth  under  mossy  cliffs.  This 
is  in  truth  a  place  as  meet  for  the  artist's  brush  as  for 
the  angler's  fly.  Trees  of  every  variety  planted  a 
century  ago  by  the  celebrated  horticulturists  who  then 
owned  the  soil,  overhung  the  river  and  thickly  draped 
the  steep  sides  of  the  glen.  The  August  sunshine,  too, 
was  sensibly  tempered  up  here  amid  the  shady  foHage. 
Cool  draughts,  laden  betimes  with  spray,   breathed 

149 


CLEAR  WATERS 

down  the  rocky  flumes,  while  the  low  state  of  the 
water  was  less  noticeable  among  these  rugged  channels. 
And,  best  of  all,  the  trout  proved  superior  to  the  con- 
ventions of  their  kind  on  such  a  day  at  such  a  season. 
In  brief,  I  picked  up,  that  afternoon,  seven  brace  of 
nice,  even  trout,  half-pounders  and  third  of  a  pounders. 
When  I  got  home  that  evening  my  sporting  hosts 
almost  embraced  me.  The  pleasure  my  comparative — 
and  perhaps,  by  them,  unlooked  for — success  gave  them 
was  a  very  different  thing  from  the  benevolent  grati- 
fication of  the  ordinary  landlord  or  landlady  that  their 
guest  is  enjoying  himself,  and  will  come  again  or 
recommend  them  to  his  friends.  There  was  nothing 
of  that  here.  I  had  to  tell  them  the  exact  spots 
where  I  had  caught  each  fish,  and  what  flies  had  taken, 
with  every  detail,  and  then  I  had  their  own  experiences 
and  those  of  others  in  past  days  on  the  water  which, 
under  good  conditions  and  in  the  right  season,  must 
in  truth  be  a  grand  bit  of  wet-fly  fishing.  As  the 
weather  showed  no  signs  of  improvement  I  went  up 
again  the  next  day  but  one,  missed  all  the  park  water 
this  time,  and  fished  the  gorge  up  stream  twice  over, 
and  brought  back  eight  or  nine  brace  of  nice  sizeable 
fish,  which  established  me  more  firmly  than  ever  in 
the  good  graces  of  this  estimable  couple.  This  new 
attitude  extended  to  the  rest  of  our  party,  and  things 
were  quite  different  for  the  remainder  of  our  stay. 
The  gentleman  no  longer  crept  up  from  below  and 
left  only  the  boots  at  the  top  of  the  stairs,  but  if  I 
was  about  lingered  long  in  the  hall  and  poured  out 
his  heart  on  the  things  that,  next  to  his  wife,  held 
possession  of  it. 
150 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

As  regards  the  latter,  so  far  from  a  severely  business 
attitude  while  spreading  our  board,  tales  of  modest 
experiences  hy  flood  and  field,  but  the  more  genuine 
for  their  limitations,  sometimes  interfered  with  strict 
punctuality.  For  this  worthy  pair  were  not  only 
addicted  to  rods  but  to  firearms.  The  lady  had  a 
rifle  of  her  own  and,  according  to  her  admiring  spouse, 
could  knock  over  rabbits  with  unerring  aim.  Their 
opportunities,  poor  things,  were  now  woefully  re- 
stricted. They  had  little  truck,  I  think,  with  their 
neighbours,  and  seemed  sufficient  unto  themselves 
with  their  dreams  of  fields  and  woods  and  streams,  for 
both  were  naturalists  in  their  way.  Not  entirely 
dreams  though,  even  then,  for  there  were  friendly 
farmers  about  in  the  neighbourhood  with  rabbits, 
wood  pigeons,  and  the  chance  of  an  occasional  crack 
at  a  partridge  or  pheasant,  who  knows  ?  And  let  the 
better-placed  reader  who  has  never  knocked  one  over 
without  a  game  licence  throw  the  first  stone.  These 
were  red  letters  in  the  year  to  be  looked  forward  to 
and  treasured  afterwards.  And  sometimes  the  lady 
went  too  and  took  her  rifle  along. 

They  astonished  me  one  day  by  the  remark  that 
'  deer  shooting '  opened  on  such  and  such  a  date,  and 
that  my  gentleman  was  looking  to  his  gun  in  readiness 
for  the  campaign.  This  sounded  something  tremen- 
dous, mysterious,  and  even  criminal,  and  no  wonder ! 
But  the  explanation  proved  simple,  though  interesting, 
since,  I  believe,  the  situation  is  unique  in  England. 
For  in  the  near  neighbourhood  of  Ludlow  there  rises 
a  range  of  lofty  hills,  clad  for  miles  with  dense  unbroken 
woodland — the  scene,  in  fact,  of  Milton's  Comus,  which 

151 


CLEAR  WATERS 

he  wrote  at  Ludlow.  Throughout  these  forests 
fallow  deer  have  roamed  in  a  wild  state  for  generations, 
and  are  accounted  as/<?f^  natures.  They  are  not  very 
often  visible,  and,  of  course,  the  woods  are  preserved 
on  other  accounts,  but  the  deer  sometimes  wander 
at  night  or  early  morning  on  to  the  surrounding  farms, 
where  they  may,  I  believe,  be  lawfully  shot  by  the 
occupants.  Hence  my  friend  in  the  surprising  char- 
acter of  a  deer-stalker  !  The  end  of  the  story  up  to 
date  of  this  singular  couple  must  surely  be  told,  as  it 
is  a  pleasant  one.  When  next  in  Ludlow,  two  or 
three  years  later,  I  lost  no  time  in  looking  them  up, 
but  encountered  to  my  disappointment  a  strange  face 
at  the  door,  and  found  that  my  friends  had  flitted, 
to  some  place  in  the  country,  their  successors  believed, 
but  were  vague  as  to  locality.  This  was  surely  as  it 
should  be,  and  eventually  I  tracked  them  down  a  mile 
or  two  out  of  the  town,  in  a  roomy,  picturesque 
cottage  on  a  by-lane  at  the  edge  of  the  big  woods. 
I  think  they  were  pleased  to  see  me,  and  for  their  part 
seemed  at  last  in  their  true  element,  with  twenty  acres 
of  fine  grass-land,  a  good  garden  and  orchard,  pigs, 
poultry,  a  few  beasts,  and  all  the  rest  of  it.  Monsieur 
was  happy  in  recovered  health,  and  madam  had  lost 
none  of  hers,  nor  yet  of  her  eloquence  on  things  of 
the  open  air.  She  had  a  cheerful,  snug  sitting-room 
further  embellished  with  her  nice  old  furniture,  and 
let  it  occasionally  to  a  summer  visitor  in  search  of 
quiet  and  a  serene  Arcadian  atmosphere. 

I  was  talking  not  long  ago  to  a  land  agent  I  hap- 
pened to  know  who  had  just  been  appointed  to  the 
charge  of  a  great  estate,  which  incidentally  contained 
152 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

four  miles  of  excellent  rapid-water  trouting  with 
the  owner  non-resident.  The  agent,  though  other- 
wise a  sportsman,  was  no  angler,  but  he  had  sound 
and  benevolent  ideas  as  to  giving  local  people  the 
preference  in  regard  to  the  two  or  three  days  a  year 
permission  he  proposed  to  grant  to  a  reasonable 
number  of  applicants.  He  was  quite  Hberal,  sensible, 
and  well-intentioned.  *  The  trouble  is,'  he  said,  '  to 
fit  them  in,'  and  turning  to  his  notes  remarked, 
*  Here,  for  instance,  Jones  wants  to  come  on  the  loth, 
and  so  does  Brown,  which  is  awkward.  And  now, 
what  days  would  you  like  ?  (I  was  a  candidate,  and 
though  not  a  local,  had  some  equivalent  claim).  I 
have  Thompson  down  for  the  14th  and  17th.'  *  I 
don't  care  a  hang,'  I  replied,  '  so  far  as  I  am  concerned, 
whether  Brown,  Jones,  or  Thompson  are  fishing  the 
water  concurrently.  There  is  plenty  of  room  for 
half  a  dozen  rods,  to  say  nothing  of  a  couple  in  four 
miles,  and  I  am  quite  certain  that  these  other  in- 
dividuals, if  they  are  fishermen  of  reasonable  know- 
ledge and  sanity,  will  be  of  the  same  mind.  I  don't 
want  four  miles  all  to  myself.  On  the  contrary,  it 
would  be  far  more  interesting  to  me  if  there  were  one 
or  two  other  rods  out.'  I  don't  think  my  friend  saw 
it,  though ;  I  don't  suppose  he  ever  will,  but  will 
continue,  no  doubt  quite  conscientiously,  to  give  him- 
self no  end  of  superfluous  trouble,  as  well  as  frequently 
to  inconvenience  many  of  his  beneficiaries. 

This  naming  of  days  is  in  truth  an  absurdity,  and 
most  unfair  to  the  nominees,  unless,  of  course,  it  is  a 
very  small  stretch,  which  is  rarely  the  case  when  these 
formalities  are   necessary  and   tickets   printed.      The 

153 


CLEAR  WATERS 

water  may  be  in  flood  or  under  a  rasping  east  wind. 
Give  a  man  his  one  or  two  days  at  discretion  within, 
say,  a  fortnight,  if  a  limit  is  necessary.  If  any  incon- 
venience should  arise,  which  is  most  unlikely,  that  is 
surely  the  angler's  not  the  owner's  look-out.  The 
former,  I  am  sure,  would  far  sooner  take  such  remote 
chances  of  undue  congestion  than  be  tied  to  a  hopeless 
day  or  days,  as  if  a  river  were  a  pheasant  cover  or  a 
golf-course.  It  doesn't  cost  anything  to  be  merely 
sensible !  Moreover,  if  A  fishes  the  top  mile, 
and  B  the  middle,  and  C  the  lower  (say  half-mile, 
if  you  like)  from  ten  o'clock  on,  or  whatever  mutual 
arrangements  they  may  agree  upon,  the  water  is  pre- 
sumably covered  only  twice  in  a  day  by  a  single  rod, 
and  what  does  that  amount  to  ?  Nothing  at  all ! — 
particularly  as  trout  usually  rise  only  during  periods, 
not  through  the  whole  day. 

Ludlow,  to  my  thinking,  is  the  noblest  country 
town  in  England,  for  its  blend  of  stately  pose  and 
old-world  charm.  There  are  streets  perhaps  in  some 
other  towns  quainter,  and  as  full  or  even  fuller  of 
ancient  dweUings,  though  Ludlow  has  stiU  some  sixty 
or  seventy  half-timbered  houses  which  mere  stripping 
would  expose  in  all  their  pristine  beauty.  But  it  isn't 
such  detail  alone  that  gives  character  to  the  south 
Shropshire  town,  but  a  combination  rather  of  every- 
thing that  makes  for  distinction,  pose,  antiquity, 
beauty  of  surroundings  and  historic  atmosphere. 
The  lines  of  the  place,  too,  are  finely  laid.  The  streets 
are  wide  and  slope  upwards  from  a  narrow  river  valley, 
charming  in  itself,  with  quick  waters  and  embowering 
woods,  to  the  noblest  parish  church  on  the  Border, 

154 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

and  one  of  the  greatest  and  most  imposing  mediseval 
castles  in  England.  There  is  everywhere  the  pleasant, 
unsmirched  atmosphere  of  a  clean  market-town,  and 
the  picturesque  intermingling  of  foliage  with  buildings 
which  suggests  space  and  elbow-room.  East  of  the 
high-pitched  town,  dominated  by  its  hoary  and 
massive  castle,  the  sharp  peaks  of  the  Clee  hills  spring 
up  close  at  hand  to  a  height  of  seventeen  hundred 
feet.  While  behind  it  on  the  west,  directly  from  the 
river,  there  rise  to  a  thousand  feet  or  more  those 
beautifully  wooded  ranges  already  alluded  to,  where 
the  wild  fallow-deer  roam  unseen  in  luxuriant  undu- 
lations of  wood  and  glade.  From  the  foot  of  the 
town  and  castle  hill,  spreading  northward  more  or 
less,  are  the  valleys  of  the  Teme,  the  Onny,  and  the 
Corve,  with  Wenlock  Edge,  Caradoc,  and  the  high 
Church  Stretton  range  bounding  the  horizon. 

It  is  only  fitting  that  Ludlow  should  look  its  part, 
since  it  was  the  official  capital  of  Wales  and  the  Marches 
through  the  whole  Tudor  and  Stuart  periods,  and  its 
castle  as  the  then  seat  of  government  is  a  good  deal 
more  than  the  mere  mighty  relic  of  ancient  border 
strife.  Nor  is  there,  I  think,  a  place  in  all  England 
where  within  a  radius  of  twenty  odd  miles  so  much 
that  is  aesthetically  beautiful  in  the  way  of  village 
and  manor-house  architecture,  combined  with  noble 
ecclesiastical  and  feudal  relics  of  a  former  day,  is  set 
off  by  natural  scenery  of  a  kind  that  infinitely  helps 
to  impress  such  things  upon  the  imagination.  No 
angler  with  a  particle  of  taste  need  be  at  a  loss  here 
even  in  a  dry  spell. 

The  Onny  is    a   pretty  little   trout    stream   with 

155 


CLEAR  WATERS 

grayling  in  its  lower  portions,  and  joins  the  Teme 
at  Bromfield,  already  mentioned  as  some  three  miles 
above  Ludlow.  It  rises  in  Radnorshire,  and  follows 
the  little  branch  railroad  from  Bishop's  Castle  to 
Craven  Arms  Junction  down  a  winding,  picturesque, 
and  narrow  vaUey.  At  Craven  Arms  there  is  a  com- 
fortable hotel  on  the  river  bank  with  some  fishing 
privileges  for  trout  and  grayling.  But  the  upper 
Onny,  and  what  is  generally  known  as  the  Plowden 
water,  being  the  property  of  that  ancient  Roman 
Catholic  family,  the  Plowdens  of  Plowden,  whose 
beautiful  Tudor  manor-house  stands  above  the  stream, 
has  been  held  ever  since  I  first  knew  it,  some  thirty 
years  ago,  by  a  small  club.  This,  however,  is  a  more 
or  less  local  body  with  certain  hospitable  clauses, 
which  have  been  kindly  exercised  in  my  favour  on 
various  occasions.  The  Onny  is  a  bewitching  little 
stream,  particularly  above  Craven  Arms  and  the  grayling 
stretches,  though,  like  the  Teme  and  all  its  tributaries, 
it  is  afflicted  with  the  intrusive  chub.  The  chub  has 
not  a  particle  of  restraint  in  his  composition,  nor  the 
faintest  sense  of  propriety.  He  is  an  out-and-out 
vulgarian,  a  rank  '  climber.'  Unlike  other  coarse  fish 
who  push  into  trout,  grayling,  and  salmon  waters,  he 
thrusts  himself  into  every  corner  of  them.  Regardless 
of  his  plebeian  quaHties,  his  gross  body,  unpalatable 
flesh,  and  lubberly  antics,  when  he  has  seized  your  fly 
and  spoiled  a  pool,  he  usurps  the  hovers  of  the  rightful 
denizens  of  the  stream.  He  doesn't  stick  to  the  heavy 
waters  and  muddy  bottoms,  but  will  assert  himself  as 
often  as  not  in  the  very  best  fly  water.  Nay,  from 
the  Wye  particularly,  where  he  is  even  more  of  a  curse, 

156 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

he  will  ascend  the  mountain  streams  of  Wales  and 
thrust  his  ugly  head  up  in  clear  rocky  waters  where 
his  presence  is  neither  more  nor  less  than  an  outrage. 
He  is  an  interesting  and  valuable  personality  sucking 
in  flies  beneath  a  willow  on  the  Thames  or  Ouse  ; 
but  up  in  this  country  no  one  wants  him  a  bit :  he  is 
an  abomination. 

The  Onny  is  not  rated  in  the  same  class  as  a  trout 
stream  with  the  Teme  or  Lugg,  nice  little  river 
though  it  be,  and  withal  pleasant  to  fish.  The  trout, 
moreover,  run  small  in  the  Plowden  water,  mainly 
about  four  to  the  pound.  I  only  remember  once 
catching  them  really  on  the  rise,  and  that  was  my 
very  first  day  on  the  water,  an  April  one,  considerably 
over  twenty  years  ago.  It  would  certainly  not  be 
worth  recalling,  but  for  a  rather  curious  incident 
connected  with  it.  I  was  staying  with  an  old  friend 
in  the  neighbourhood,  and  I  use  the  prefix  advisedly, 
seeing  that  he  dates  back  to  the  juvenile  pike  adventure 
of  the  first  chapter  in  this  very  county  of  Salop.  Two 
tickets  for  the  Plowden  water  had  been  given  us,  so 
my  friend's  son,  then  aged  about  twenty,  and  I  drove 
over  one  morning  to  make  use  of  them.  I  always 
noticed  in  those  days  that  Shropshire  men,  north  of 
Ludlow  at  any  rate,  used  very  large  flies  for  their 
generally  rather  small  streams  and  their  certainly  not 
large  trout.  My  young  friend,  when  we  fixed  up  our 
rods  on  the  banks  of  the  Onny,  proved  a  true  Salopian, 
and  attached  to  his  cast  two  or  three  flies  that,  though 
of  serviceable  dressing,  seemed  to  me  quite  monstrous 
in  size.  He  was  an  excellent  fisherman  though, 
having  been  bred  up  one,  with  every  advantage.     I 

157 


CLEAR  WATERS 

expressed  surprise,  but  did  not  of  course  venture  more, 
being  then  almost  a  stranger  to  the  locality.  For  all 
that,  I  myself  mounted  a  small  orange  dun  of  the 
Dee  pattern,  which  insect  during  the  previous  fort- 
night on  that  noble  river  I  had  found,  as  I  have  often 
found  since,  extremely  killing.  Thereupon  we  parted 
till  lunch-time  to  fish  separate  parts  of  the  stream, 
and  just  as  I  was  commencing  operations  the  keeper 
turned  up.  He  confessed  himself  a  fisherman,  so  I 
broached  the  question  of  flies,  and  he  inspected  my 
cast  mounted  with  the  small  orange  dun  and  some 
other  flies  of  the  same  calibre.  *  These  are  no  good, 
sir,'  said  he  ;  '  you  will  never  do  anything  with  them 
here,  they  are  far  too  small.  Here  are  the  flies  we 
use.'  Whereupon  he  pulled  out  his  book  and  exhibited 
some  samples  like  my  young  friend's,  and  far  larger 
than  anything  I  had  ever  used  or  seen  used  for  brook 
trout.  In  spite  of  the  fixed  local  tradition,  for  which, 
as  a  rule,  I  have  a  profound  respect,  I  rejected  his 
offer  of  some,  though  not  without  qualms,  and  stuck 
to  the  small  duns,  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  were 
of  normal  size  as  things  are  now  accounted.  We 
parted,  and  I  began  to  catch  fish  at  once.  When  I 
had  finished  my  stretch  of  water  about  sandwich-time, 
I  had  eighteen  or  twenty  trout  in  my  basket,  so  I 
reeled  up  and  returned  to  the  agreed-upon  midday 
trysting-place,  thinking  what  a  fine  lot  we  should 
have  between  us  by  evening.  On  my  way  I  encoun- 
tered a  strange  angler,  who  began  at  once  to  curse 
the  heavens  above  and  the  waters  beneath  and  every- 
thing he  could  think  of  for  the  poor  sport  he  was 
having.     I  asked  to  see  his  flies,  which  proved  to  be, 

158 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

as  I  expected,  the  local  pattern  of  almost  sea-trout 
size.  Better  still,  the  keeper  was  with  him,  and  this 
our  second  interview  was  interesting  !  So  when  I 
met  my  young  friend  again  I  was  less  astonished  than 
I  should  otherwise  have  been  to  find  that  he,  too, 
was  calling  on  all  his  gods  to  show  cause  why  the 
fish  on  such  a  propitious -looking  day  had  only  offered 
up  a  single  victim  to  his  efforts.  I  felt  emboldened 
now  to  tell  him  I  was  perfectly  certain  what  the  trouble 
was,  and  after  lunch  persuaded  him — and,  indeed,  the 
thing  being  too  obvious,  he  needed  little  inducement — 
to  put  up  one  of  my  orange  duns,  for  I  think  I  had 
killed  nearly  all  my  fish  on  it.  To  shorten  Part  i. 
of  the  story,  for  there  is  a  sequel,  the  trout  continued, 
if  with  slightly  modified  eagerness,  to  take  the  orange 
dun  through  the  afternoon,  during  which  we  had 
almost  exactly  the  same  number  of  fish  to  our  respec- 
tive credits,  which  was  as  it  should  be. 

I  have  hinted  above  at  a  sequel.  For  a  day  or  two 
afterwards  it  was  suggested  that  I  should  fish  an 
obscure  but  good  little  stream,  which  flows  down 
under  Wenlock  Edge  to  the  Onny.  There  was  no 
road  to  it,  so  we  had  to  walk  across  country,  and  my 
host  himself,  the  son  being  otherwise  engaged,  though 
a  mighty  Nimrod,  not  at  all  a  keen  fisherman,  kindly 
offered  to  go  with  me.  For  the  owner  was,  I  think, 
a  pernickety  customer,  who  would  just  concede  an 
occasional  day  to  a  neighbour,  but  would  have  thrown 
bricks,  unhesitatingly,  at  a  neighbour's  guest  un- 
accompanied. It  was  a  very  bushy,  sequestered  little 
stream,  unnamed  on  the  map,  but  held  quite  nice 
trout,  and  I  should  imagine  was  rarely  fished.     My 

159 


CLEAR  WATERS 

host,  deeply  concerned  all  his  Hfe  with  everything 
connected  with  the  countryside,  had  never,  I  am  sure 
he  will  not  mind  me  saying,  taken  fishing  seriously. 
And  it  was  all  the  nicer  of  him  to  give  up  half  of  his 
busy  day  and  tramp  with  rod  and  basket  over  hills  and 
dales  that  I  might  indulge  my  fancy  unmolested.  Of 
course,  he  put  up  a  cast  of  the  overgrown  Shropshire 
patterns,  and  as  I  felt  he  was  only  fishing  to  keep 
me  company,  it  didn't  seem  to  matter.  While  I  as 
naturally  put  up  my  normally  sized  flies,  with  no  doubt 
an  orange  dun  on  this  occasion  as  leader. 

After  an  hour  or  two  of  hard  but  futile  up-stream 
fishing  among  alder-bushes  for  one  soUtary  trout,  I 
gave  it  up  and  set  out  in  quest  of  my  companion  in  a 
rather  penitent  frame  of  mind  for  bringing  him  all 
this  way  to  so  little  purpose.  To  my  surprise,  how- 
ever, I  found  him  enjoying  himself  amazingly.  In- 
deed, he  was  just  landing  a  nice  trout  as  I  got  up  to 
him,  and  had  seven  or  eight  shapely  herring-sized 
fish  already  in  his  basket.  I  don't  mind  admitting 
after  this  lapse  of  years,  though  I  often  go  to  see  him 
still,  and  I  doubt  if  he  has  ever  fished  since,  that  I  felt 
deeply  humiUated.  Where  now  was  the  orange  dun  ? 
and  why  had  I,  an  ardent  and  professed  fisherman, 
caught  practically  nothing  ?  Why,  indeed  ?  for  I 
had  laboured  assiduously.  But  the  cup  even  yet  was 
not  quite  full.  '  It  must  be  the  flies,'  he  said ;  and  if 
that,  under  the  circumstances,  was  any  consolation, 
he  was  absolutely  right,  as  was  very  soon  proven. 
For  he  himself  had  to  be  off  home  for  an  engage- 
ment, but  his  conscience  was  now  clear  regarding  the 
owner,  and  it  was  now  considered  safe  and  proper  for 
i6o 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

me  to  remain  as  long  as  I  chose.  *  Give  me  your  rod,' 
said  I  in  my  abasement,  '  just  as  it  is.'  And  I  took  it, 
salmon-flies,  as  they  seemed  to  me,  and  all,  and  he 
departed.  I  began  rising  and  catching  fish  at  once,  and 
soon  had  half  a  dozen  nice  ones  like  those  in  my  friend's 
basket,  when  they  went  off  the  feed  altogether ;  and 
in  due  course  I  wended  my  way  homeward,  thinking 
furiously,  but  to  no  good  purpose,  I  need  hardly  add. 
Talking  of  these  big  trout-flies,  then  at  any  rate  in 
vogue  among  Salopians,  every  one  familiar  with  the 
line  from  Shrewsbury  to  Church  Stretton  and  Here- 
ford must  know  the  Condover  brook,  named  after 
the  village  and  its  famous  Elizabethan  mansion,  so 
recently  passed  out  of  the  Cholmondeley  family. 
For  its  higher  waters  sport  pleasantly  among  the 
meadows  for  several  miles  between  the  stations  of 
Dorrington  and  Condover,  where  it  turns  an  eastward 
course  towards  the  Severn.  It  is  quite  a  noted  little 
trout  stream,  though  from  a  train  window  even  a 
practised  bush  fisherman  might  be  apt  to  wonder  how 
he  could  circumvent  the  alders  which  bristle  so  thick 
along  its  narrow  course.  I  have  often  been  invited  to 
make  the  experiment  by  a  friend  in  Shrewsbury  who 
had  rights  upon  it  and  fished  it  regularly.  But  the 
weather  has  always  been  prohibitive,  for  like  the  little 
girl  of  the  nursery  rhyme  the  moods  of  the  Condover 
brook  run  to  extremes,  and  when  it  is  low  it  is  very, 
very  low,  and,  in  short,  impossible.  But  my  friend 
used  to  show  me  the  flies  he  used  upon  it,  the  very 
flies,  in  fact,  which  *  must  be  used,'  and  that  the  trout 
demanded  should  alone  be  offered.  And  these  corre- 
sponded precisely  in  size  withthosethat  ha  d  so  staggered 
h  i6i 


CLEAR  WATERS 

me  elsewhere  in  Shropshire — once,  as  related,  to  my 
salvation,  and  once  to  my  undoing.  So  in  this  state 
of  perplexity  I  will  leave  this  region  of  babbling  brooks 
and  return  to  the  Herefordshire  Lugg,  where  such 
monstrously  overgrown  red  hackles  and  blue  duns 
would,  I  am  sure,  be  regarded  with  horror  and  amaze- 
ment both  by  fishermen  and  fish. 

It  is  curious  what  a  liking  Herefordshire  grayling,  at 
any  rate,  seem  to  have  for  very  low  water.  In  my 
experience,  and  the  much  more  convincing  one  of 
anglers  who  live  upon  the  Lugg,  the  more  hopeless 
looking  the  conditions  in  this  particular  the  brighter 
the  prospect  of  a  good  basket.  Of  many  Septembers 
in  which  I  have  fished  this  water,  the  only  one  which 
proved  for  the  entire  week  a  comparative  failure  was 
after  the  wet  summer  of  191 2.  Previously,  each 
occasion  had  seemed  worse  in  appearance  than  the 
last,  yet  the  grayling,  I  may  fairly  say,  took  better 
and  better  with  each  succeeding  autumn,  till  their 
partiahty  for  a  red  tag  and  a  mid-blue  seemed  to  cul- 
minate in  the  great  drought  of  191 1,  when  the  river 
really  did  look  absolutely  hopeless  to  the  ordinary  eye. 
And  no  wonder,  for  hardly  a  drop  of  rain  had  fallen, 
or,  to  be  precise,  scarcely  a  drop  of  fresh  water  had 
run  into  the  river  since  the  preceding  April.  In  the 
heart  of  Wales,  west  of  the  Wye,  the  fountains  of  the 
hills  had  been  loosed  in  August  and  the  mountain 
pastures  were  again  fresh  and  green,  and  snowy 
wreaths  of  water  were  once  more  glistening  against 
the  long  parched  cliffs.  But  down  in  Herefordshire 
the  streams  were  still  almost  voiceless  in  the  deadly 
stupor  of  the  drought  of  a  century.  In  June  we  had 
162 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

been  mayfly  fishing  here,  and  even  then  praying  for 
rain.  It  was  now  mid-September,  and  practically  not 
a  drop  had  fallen  since.  *  Come  and  have  a  try,  but 
you  can  imagine  what  the  river  is  like,'  wrote  my  host, 
who  had  not  wetted  a  line  at  home,  I  think,  since  we  had 
wrestled  together  for  a  week  of  a  (locally)  vexatious 
mayfly  season.  I  went  for  two  days  only  on  this 
occasion  in  anything  but  sanguine  mood.  I  had  not 
yet  fathomed  the  true  inwardness  of  the  Lugg  gray- 
ling, nor  indeed  had  my  friend  himself,  I  fancy,  at  that 
time.  For  there  is  a  big  difference  between  ordinary 
low  water  and  the  conditions  of  191 1.  On  my 
arrival,  however,  I  found  a  noble  heap  of  freshly  caught 
grayling  lying  on  the  hall  table,  the  day's  sport  of 
two  neighbours  who  were  having  tea  in  the  drawing- 
room — the  first  experiment  of  the  season,  as  it  trans- 
pired. It  so  fell  out  that  I  had  to  fish  both  my  days 
alone.  On  the  first  I  had  filled  my  basket  by  about 
half-past  three,  and  could  not  carry  any  more  ;  and 
on  the  second,  taking  it  very  easily,  I  had  nearly  as 
many  by  the  ordinary  reeling-up  time.  The  river 
was  so  low  too,  that  half  of  the  places  available  in 
normal  low  water  were  unfishable,  and  at  no  time, 
owing  to  high  banks  and  plentiful  timber,  is  it  easy, 
though  always  interesting,  to  fish. 

Now  comes  the  rather  instructive  sequel.  The 
water  the  next  year  at  the  same  season  after  the  wet 
summer  of  191 2  was  in  most  perfect  order.  The 
brilliant  early  autumn  had  begun.  Yet  that  week 
was  the  only  failure  so  far  experienced.  The  first 
day,  when  the  river  was  voted  just  a  thought  perhaps 
too  full  for  ideal  grayling  conditions,  I  was  out  alone, 

163 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  did,  to  be  sure,  kill  about  six  pounds.  After  that, 
better  and  better  though  the  days  apparently  became 
and  the  finer  the  water,  none  of  us  could  do  anything. 
'  Grand  weather  for  grayhng,'  we  echoed  every  morn- 
ing at  breakfast.  '  Fine  grayling  weather,  sir,'  said 
the  coachman  and  the  gardener.  *  They  '11  be  a-goin* 
to-day,  sure  to  be,'  said  the  keeper  (who  was  never 
known  to  make  superfluous  or  optimistic  remarks). 
The  road-mender,  the  old-age  pensioner  who  brooded 
much  of  the  day  (and  small  blame  to  him,  for  it  is  a 
charming  spot  upon  Lugg  bridge)  with  less  authority, 
said  the  same  thing.  Thus,  too,  echoed  the  sporting 
pubUcan  from  Kingsland,  who,  of  course,  pulls  his  trap 
up  on  it  if  any  one  is  fishing.  *  Fine  grayling  weather,' 
said  one  and  all.  Of  course  they  did ;  the  thing  was 
as  obvious  as  the  bright  serenity  of  the  weather  itself, 
as  obvious  as  Kingsland  church  tower,  with  the  far- 
away line  of  the  Black  Mountains  behind  it.  But  the 
grayling  themselves  didn't  think  so,  though  in  our 
meagre  baskets  we  generally  had  two  or  three  very 
handsome  trout,  and  naturally  enough  after  such  a 
continued  orgy  of  high  feeding,  even  still  in  good 
condition. 

I  remember,  too,  how  a  year  or  so  previously  two 
of  those  trifling  but  curious  incidents  that  occur  to 
most  of  us  perhaps  once  in  a  lifetime,  happened 
simultaneously  on  this  water.  A  swallow  taking  one's 
fly  is  too  usual  a  thing  to  be  worthy  of  mention,  but 
on  this  particular  occasion,  just  as  my  line  had  straight- 
ened out  before  falling  on  the  water,  one  dashed  into 
it,  and  by  a  movement  so  instantaneous  as  to  be 
imperceptible,  was  fluttering  hopelessly  entangled  in 
164 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

the  line  about  two  feet  above  the  cast.  It  had  twisted 
the  former  so  many  times  and  so  intricately  about 
its  little  wing  joints  and  neck,  that  its  release  from 
bondage  proved  quite  a  business,  though  its  action  had 
been  so  rapid  as  scarcely  to  disturb  the  straight  line 
from  the  rod  point  to  the  tail  fly.  When  I  got  into 
the  next  field  I  found  my  companion  for  the  day,  and 
our  host  who  was  with  him,  but  not  fishing  himself, 
full  of  another  strange  thing  that  had  just  happened. 
In  a  corner  pool,  unduly  small  from  the  tribute  just 
here  levied  by  a  mill-stream,  a  pound  trout  had  seized 
a  small  grayling  which  had  taken  the  angler's  fly,  and 
stuck  to  it  with  such  extraordinary  tenacity  that 
several  times  it  was  brought  almost  out  of  water  on  to 
the  shelving  beach.  Unfortunately  a  little  boy  who 
was  carrying  the  landing-net  had  selected  that  moment 
to  embark  on  some  adventure  of  his  own,  and  was 
nowhere  to  be  seen.  If  the  net  had  been  there  the 
trout  would  have  been  landed  to  a  certainty.  As  it 
was,  our  host  very  nearly  kicked  it  out  on  to  the  beach 
with  his  foot,  though  it  was  not  hooked  in  any  way, 
but  merely  had  its  jaws  in  the  grayUng,  and  either 
could  not,  or  more  likely  would  not,  relax  them. 

There  is  a  charming  bit  of  woodland  vista  just  below 
Lugg  bridge,  down  which  the  river  makes  a  bright  and 
sparkling  journey  over  a  stony  bed  between  the  foliage 
to  the  quiet  pools  and  glides  beyond  it.  This  is  the 
only  place  I  ever  remember  seeing  five  kingfishers  on 
the  wing  at  once,  and  that,  too,  on  several  occasions, 
though  the  Lugg  is  a  favourite  haunt  of  this  most 
beautiful  of  British  birds.  It  was  the  year  of  the  great 
drought  and  the  Coronation,  and  we  saw  them  every 

i6s 


CLEAR  WATERS 

day  while  mayfly  fishing.  The  colouring  and  luxuri- 
ance of  the  early  summer  of  that  memorable  season 
is  as  unforgettable  as  the  parching  weariness  of  its 
later  months.  And  I  well  remember  how  the  sunlit 
radiancy  of  this  procession  of  scudding  kingfishers, 
following  the  old  bird,  showed  up  against  the  fresh, 
lustrous  foUage  of  their  woody  background,  as  again 
and  again  they  flashed  backwards  and  forwards.  In 
the  grayling  season  they  were  still  there,  the  whole 
brood  of  them  stronger  on  the  wing  perhaps,  and  still 
more  gorgeous  of  plumage.  But  the  freshness  of  that 
June  foliage  mantling  upon  the  bank  and  quivering  in 
many  coloured  radiancy  on  the  quick  transparent 
water,  had  vanished,  and  somehow  the  kingfishers 
didn't  look  quite  the  same.  Perhaps  there  was  less 
opportunity  for  admiring  Nature.  There  was  cer- 
tainly less  occasion  for  falling  back  upon  her  consola- 
tions, for  the  grayling  kept  us  materially  contented 
and  very  busy,  whereas  the  trout  that  year  had  sup- 
plied us  with  long  interludes  for  reflection  as  well  as 
many  periods  of  exasperation.  We  amused  ourselves 
betimes,  too,  in  watching  through  strong  binoculars 
the  demeanour  of  the  fish  we  could  not  catch.  The 
dry-fly  purist,  I  have  no  doubt,  spends  much  time  at 
this,  and  extracts  from  it  many  precious  truths.  I 
found  it  most  fascinating,  not  merely  from  the  in- 
timacy on  which  it  placed  one  with  the  elusive  object 
of  our  quest,  but  for  the  beauty  of  the  gliding  water 
thus  magnified  and  illumined  by  the  sun's  rays.  I  got 
no  nearer  catching  the  fish,  however.  On  the  contrary, 
the  amount  of  food,  winged  and  wingless,  which 
passed  by  unnoticed,  as  revealed  through  a  strong  glass, 
i66 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

and  withal  the  impossibility  of  even  then  identifying 
the  tiny  morsel  which  every  now  and  again  it  selected 
from  the  mass  of  stuff  that  came  down,  was  dis- 
heartening. It  was  interesting,  too,  watching  the  fish 
over  which  a  smaU  dry-fly  was  being  cast  by  my  com- 
panion :  the  first  slight  movements  of  languid  interest, 
as  the  tempting-looking  imitation  fell  or  floated  over 
his  nose,  and  then  the  contemptuous  shrug  of  the 
shoulders,  and,  finally,  the  utter  callousness  displayed 
at  aU  further  attempts. 

So  many  anglers  have  never  even  seen  a  grayling, 
it  may  be  worth  stating  that  it  belongs  to  the  trout  and 
salmon  family,  its  larger  scales,  smaller  mouth  and 
teeth,  and  big  dorsal  fin  being  the  chief  distinguishing 
characteristics.  Its  fighting  powers  when  in  con- 
dition, particularly,  I  think,  when  about  half  a  pound 
in  weight,  are  about  equal  to  a  trout  of  the  same  size. 
In  a  mixed  river  amid  Hvely  waters  it  is  not  always 
easy  to  tell  at  first  which  you  have  hooked.  Usually 
the  dorsal  fin  coming  above  water,  or  the  purplish  look  it 
gives  to  the  back,  is  the  first  sign,  and  if  in  the  trouting 
season  causes,  of  course,  a  pang  of  disappointment. 
It  is  surprising,  however,  in  a  river  full  of  grayling, 
how  little  one  sees  of  them  during  that  period.  Their 
domestic  arrangements  are  the  precise  converse  of  the 
trout,  spawning  as  they  do  in  the  spring,  and  coming 
into  condition  in  September  and  October  when  the 
water  seems  again  peopled  with  them,  and  the  trout 
take  a  back  seat,  and  to  the  eye  almost  cease  to  exist. 
This  makes  a  river  where  they  reaUy  flourish  together 
without  mutual  disagreement,  and  both  show  sport 
in  their  season,  greatly  to  be  desired.     There  is  no 

167 


CLEAR  WATERS 

doubt,  however,  that  when  on  the  take  they  are  much 
easier  to  kill  and  much  less  shy  than  trout.  On  the 
table  they  greatly  resemble  the  latter.  I  should  say 
that  a  grayling  was  the  equal  of  an  average  trout, 
though  not  trout  of  the  best  class,  such  as  those,  for 
instance,  out  of  rocky  mountain  streams.  But  the 
Lugg  grayling  are  generally  regarded  by  those  who 
have  the  best  opportunities  for  comparison  as  equal 
in  October  to  the  Lugg  trout  of  June,  which  is  also 
white-fleshed. 

After  leaving  Leominster,  to  pursue  a  course  of  some 
twenty  miles  towards  its  junction  with  the  Wye  below 
Hereford,  through  flat  meadows  for  the  most  part,  the 
Lugg  gradually,  I  think,  deteriorates  as  a  trout  stream, 
though  the  fish  perhaps  get  heavier.  But  neither  they 
nor  the  grayling  rise  so  freely,  and  I  fancy  the  coarse 
fish  begin  to  get  some  hold.  But  whenever  I  cross 
it  at  Lugwardine,  or  again,  traveUing  south  by  road 
from  Hereford  to  Ross,  stand  on  the  bridge  at 
Mordiford  just  above  its  junction  with  the  Wye,  it 
appears  to  me  a  different  river  from  the  buoyant 
stream  of  Kingsland  and  Mortimer's  Cross.  And 
looking  back  up  the  wide,  flat  meadows,  I  always  feel 
that  it  has  seen  its  best  days  from  every  point  of  view, 
and  that  it  is  full  time  it  should  merge  its  waters  in  the 
most  beautiful  of  all  EngHsh  and  Welsh  rivers. 

In  the  cottage  in  the  orchard  by  Lugg  bridge  where 
the  keeper  now  lives,  there  dwelt  for  many  years  a 
well-known  character,  fisherman  and  fly-tier.  Seques- 
tered spot  though  it  be,  he  sent  his  flies  aU  over  this 
border  country,  and  had  cHents,  I  beheve,  in  other 
parts  of  England.  An  accomplished  angler  himself, 
i68 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

he  seems  to  have  been  in  request  as  companion  on 
fishing  excursions  far  beyond  the  bounds  of  his  native 
waters.  His  widow  moved  into  a  roomy  ancient 
house  standing  in  a  considerable  garden  in  the  neigh- 
bouring village  of  Kingsland.  The  venerable  dame 
told  me  she  got  it  at  a  low  rent  by  reason  of  its  extreme 
antiquity.  It  contained  some  quite  capacious  hand- 
some rooms  with  carved  mantels,  and  being  kept 
beautifully  clean,  and  withal  suitably  furnished,  was 
most  attractive.  I  lay  there  one  night,  and  it  was 
not  till  I  went  aloft  to  bed  that  I  began  to  perceive 
the  mystery  of  the  landlord's  moderation.  For  the 
ascent  from  the  door  to  the  head  of  the  bed  and  the 
dressing-table  was  so  precipitous  that,  with  only  a 
bottle  of  cider  to  my  credit,  it  took  careful  climbing 
on  the  oak  floor  to  accomplish  the  feat,  and  when  I 
had  to  make  the  return  trip  in  the  morning  I  felt 
greatly  moved  to  sit  down  and  toboggan  it.  I  don't 
know  what  the  age  of  that  house  can  be.  Jasper 
Tudor  might  well  have  occupied  it  his  last  night 
on  earth  before  the  battle  ! 

It  was  Coronation  Day  that  on  this  occasion,  after 
weeks  of  dry  weather,  broke  cloudy  and  drizzly.  I 
was  fishing  that  morning,  and  never  felt  in  such  an 
awkward  predicament  in  my  life.  The  very  notion  of 
rain  at  such  a  moment  was  unthinkable,  yet  under 
any  other  conceivable  conditions  I  should  have  been 
on  my  knees  praying  that  the  threatening  clouds 
might  break.  Happily,  I  can  honestly  swear  that  I 
repelled  with  disgust  unworthy  and  insidious  thoughts, 
and  rejoiced  as  heartily  as  the  parson  and  the  school- 
master when  the  great  flag  on  the  church  tower  at 

169 


CLEAR  WATERS 

midday  caught  the  rays  of  the  returning  sun,  and  the 
dim  clamour  of  loyal  rustics  was  wafted  even  to  the 
river-side. 

The  trout  peradventure  were  celebrating  the  occa- 
sion under  water  in  their  own  way,  for  a  drizzly  night 
and  morning  had  made  them  sullener  than  even  on 
the  preceding  day,  so  I  had  plenty  of  time  for  reflec- 
tion, and  my  thoughts  at  such  a  moment  naturally 
turned  to  that  tremendous  conflict  on  these  quiet 
fields  which  brought  about  another  coronation  four 
and  a  half  centuries  ago.  Gone  are  the  barons  of  these 
Welsh  marches  who,  more  than  any  other  feudal 
chieftains  of  their  day,  made  and  unmade  kings. 
Gone  are  the  Mortimers,  the  Lacys,  the  de  Braoses, 
and  the  Clares  ;  Wigmore  and  Richard's  castle,  Gode- 
rich  and  Abergavenny,  Grosmont  and  Skenfrith  are 
but  shattered  ruins.  Ludlow  alone,  by  virtue  of  its 
later  and  viceregal  significance,  still  frowns  roofless 
but  immense  over  the  once  bloodstained  land. 

So  it  was  no  hardship  to  reel  up  and  hurry  back 
to  Ludlow,  whence  on  this  occasion  I  had  come,  and 
do  a  portion  of  my  duty  at  any  rate  in  standing  by  the 
big  bonfire  on  the  heights  above  the  ancient  town, 
and  beneath  an  umbrella  for  the  only  time  of  that 
whole  summer.  Alas !  we  had  hoped  to  see  the  flare 
from  many  a  noble  height — from  the  Clee,  from 
Caradoc,  from  the  Long  Mynd  and  the  Wrekin — 
but  all  was  murk,  though  our  own  bonfire  blazed  to 
heaven  and  mocked  at  the  faUing  rain.  Then,  at 
any  rate,  it  was  permissible  for  farmers  and  fishermen 
to  pray  for  its  continuance.  But,  as  everybody  knows, 
these  prayers  were  unheard ;  and,  as  I  have  said  more 
170 


THE  WELSH  BORDERLAND 

than  once,  when,  months  afterwards,  I  returned  to 
the  Lugg  to  be  revenged,  as  it  so  happened,  upon  the 
autumn  grayHng  the  ill-behaviour  of  the  June  trout, 
not  a  drop  had  fallen  in  the  interval. 

I  have  always  been  not  a  little  surprised  that  so  few 
outsiders  ever  penetrate  the  beautiful  vale  of  Llanthony 
watered  by  the  clear  rapid  streams  of  the  little  river 
Honddu.  The  small  hostelry  of  the  Queen's  Head, 
when  not  pre-empted  by  the  members  of  the  two 
clubs  who  hold  the  lower  half  of  the  river,  is  available 
for  bed  and  board,  and  its  landlord  used  to  rent  upon 
his  own  account  two  or  three  miles  of  excellent  fishing 
over  the  mountain  on  the  upper  Monnow.  But  five 
miles  up  this  lovely  and  sequestered  Honddu  valley 
stand  the  noble  ruins  of  Llanthony  Priory,  presenting 
as  perfect  a  picture  of  mediaeval  art  set  amid  an 
inspiring  uplifted  solitude  as  can  be  found  in  all 
England.  Moreover,  portions  of  the  old  monkish 
quarters  have  been  kept  habitable,  and  now  this  long 
time  have  been  doing  unique  duty  as  a  very  comfort- 
able inn.  The  roomy  living  rooms  and  kitchen  are  those 
inhabited  by  the  monks  of  old.  You  squeeze  upwards 
by  spiral  stone  stairways  to  your  chamber  in  turret 
or  gable,  whence  you  can  watch  the  moonlight  stream- 
ing over  the  roofless  cloistered  aisles  without,  and  hear 
the  owls  hooting  in  the  ivied  arches.  On  three  sides 
the  Black  Mountains  lift  their  heathy  tops  some 
two  thousand  feet  into  the  sky,  and  the  Honddu  sings 
in  its  bosky  rocky  channel  below.  As  a  practical  item 
it  may  also  be  noted  that  the  right  of  fishing  over  a 
considerable  stretch  of  the  stream  attaches  to  the 
Priory,  and  that  as  a  place  of  sojourn  it  is,  or  was, 

171 


CLEAR  WATERS 

materially  comfortable  as  well  as  aesthetically  satisfying. 
But  the  man  who  would  fish  the  Honddu,  whether 
on  the  club  water  by  favour  of  a  member,  or  on  the 
higher  parts  from  the  Priory  Inn,  must  be  at  home 
in  timber,  for  much  of  it  is  thickly  fringed  with  brush. 
Hereford,  Monmouth,  and  Brecon  so  interlace  their 
borders  here,  to  say  nothing  of  recent  boundary 
readjustments,  it  is  not  easy  up  in  this  lovely  corner 
of  all  three,  even  were  it  worth  while,  to  take  count 
of  such  things.  But  at  any  rate  it  is  safe  to  say 
that  within  living  memory  there  were  natives  of 
the  county  of  Hereford  in  this  sequestered  corner  who 
were  speaking  Welsh  as  their  mother  tongue. 


172 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 


VI 

THE  ELAN  LAKES  AND  WILD 
SOUTH  WALES 

I  AM  always  glad  to  remember  that  I  had  at  least 
a  glimpse  of  those  two  beautiful  and  sequestered 
vales  of  the  Elan  and  the  Claerwen  before  the 
needs  and  enterprise  of  Birmingham  submerged  them. 
But  if  the  murky  metropolis  of  the  Midlands  has 
created  a  transformation  scene,  that  scene  is  still  one 
of  beauty  and  purity — nay,  even  of  seclusion,  peace, 
and  romance.  For  the  wild  hills,  the  craggy  mountain 
steeps,  that  in  former  days  dipped  into  narrow  ribbon- 
like vales  of  green  meadow  fringed  with  indigenous 
oak,  and  dotted  at  intervals  with  a  snug  homestead  or 
a  water-mill,  now  cast  their  shadows  everywhere  upon 
the  surface  of  broad  and  brimming  waters.  From 
the  great  dam  at  the  foot  of  all,  a  veritable  Niagara 
in  high  water,  wedged  between  the  imposing  rugged 
heights  of  Cwm  Toyddwr,  the  connecting  lakes  push 
back  some  three  miles  up  the  Claerwen  valley  to  the 
west,  and  more  than  twice  that  distance  up  the  Elan 
to  the  north.  There  are  three  other  dams,  for  there 
are  four  lakes,  and  the  plash  of  those  great  lace-like 
veils  of  falling  water,  over  a  hundred  feet  in  height, 
is  virtually  the  only  sound  that  breaks  the  silence  of 

173 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  hills.  For  resident  humanity,  sparse  enough  up 
here  even  in  former  days,  is  now  of  course  scarcer 
still.  It  is  not  wanted,  for  obvious  reasons ;  nor  is 
boat  or  craft  of  any  kind  allowed  upon  these  waters, 
whose  extent  is  such  that  they  could  hardly  be  circum- 
vented by  a  walk  of  much  less  than  twenty  miles. 
What  makes  so  conspicuously  for  their  charm,  too,  is 
the  boldness  of  much  of  the  scenery  amid  which  they 
have  been  stored,  and  the  wildness  of  it  all.  The 
mouth  of  the  valley  opens  out  through  the  mountains 
that  enclose  the  most  beautiful  portions  of  the  upper 
Wye.  The  lakes  run  back  within  the  fringe  of  that 
mountain  wilderness  which  spreads  through  the  heart 
of  South  and  Central  Wales,  and  that  practically  no 
man  outside  it  knows,  and  wherein  but  very  few  indeed 
abide. 

*  South  Wales  ?  Dear  me,'  says  one's  table  neigh- 
bour, *  is  it  pretty  ?  Of  course,  I  know  North  Wales, 
but  I  thought  South  Wales  was  all  coal  mines.'  Is  it 
'pretty  and  coal  mines  !  Great  heavens !  What  have 
the  lands  of  Dyfed,  of  Ceredigion,  of  Brecheiniog  done 
that  they  should  suffer  such  a  blighted  reputation, 
for  the  opulent  province  of  Morganwg  whose  smoking 
mountains,  once  as  fair  as  any,  frown  across  the 
Severn  sea  at  Exmoor  ?  What,  too,  about  Radnor  and 
Carmarthen,  Pembroke  and  Cardigan  ? 

'  Sir  or  madam,'  I  always  reply,  and  I  fear  some- 
times with  a  little  heat,  *  the  bulk  of  North  Wales, 
together  with  the  English  Lake  Country,  are  of  course 
incomparable  in  this  island  south  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands.  They  stand  alone.  But  next  to  these 
I   would  have  you  know  that  Breconshire,   coupled 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

inevitably  with  Radnor,  so  much  are  they  interlocked, 
ranks  easily  next.' 

'  I  thought  Dev ' 

*  Yes,  of  course  you  did,  because  its  extremely 
articulate  and  patriotic  sons  have  been  booming  it 
in  admirable  and  picturesque  prose  and  verse  for  fifty 
years.  And  railroads,  London  journalists,  and  tourists 
have  responded  to  the  boom.  With  a  public  that 
for  the  most  part  knows  nothing  of  its  own  country, 
this  has  been  easily  developed  into  a  sort  of  cult.  It 
is  the  only  county  of  semi-mountain  class  outside  the 
Welsh  marches,  and  south  of  Yorkshire  or  Derbyshire. 
For  Cornwall  inside  its  seacoast  need  not  be  taken 
count  of  in  such  company.' 

Devonshire  as  a  whole  is  a  beautiful  and  lovable 
county,  but  considerable  sHces  of  it,  as  we  noticed  in 
a  former  chapter,  are  undeniably  commonplace  of 
aspect,  even  to  the  verge  of  ugliness.  Now  Brecon- 
shire  cum  Radnor  does  not,  I  really  think,  contain  a 
dull  or  a  commonplace  square  mile.  Its  mountains 
reach  an  altitude  of  nearly  three  thousand  feet — the 
height,  that  is,  of  Cader  Idris  and  Helvellyn.  They 
are  often,  too,  of  shapely  make,  and  sometimes  of 
rugged  summit  and  precipitous  face.  In  all  the 
streams  of  Devon  the  Dart,  the  queen  of  them,  not 
excepted,  there  is  assuredly  not  a  Wye,  and  I  think 
scarcely  an  Usk.  And  these  two  noble  salmon 
rivers  between  them  wash  the  red  sandstone  banks 
or  Silurian  crags  of  Brecon  and  Radnor  for  something 
like  eighty  miles  of  their  impetuous  courses.  In  the 
vales,  too,  lie  gracious  park-lands  and  noble  timber, 
and   ancient   manor-houses  and  hoary  churches,  and 

175 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  shattered  relics  of  old  border  wars ;  while  almost 
every  hill  and  hollow  has  its  story,  sometimes  half-told 
by  its  mellifluous  Cymric  name. 

But  it  would  be  no  use  writing  a  book  merely  about 
Breconshire.  Its  name  would  convey  nothing.  Very 
few  people  outside  Wales  know  where  it  is.  It  has 
never  been  boomed  by  popular  novelists  or  poets. 
They  know  nothing  about  it.  This  is  very  satis- 
factory, and  I  hope  it  will  long  remain  so.  On  the 
iron  coast  of  Pembroke,  again,  for  some  fifty  miles 
very  much  resembHng  the  opposite  sea-front  of 
Cornwall,  no  stranger  to  speak  of  beyond  Tenby,  just 
at  the  near  edge  of  it,  or  a  few  pilgrims  to  St.  David's, 
is  ever  seen.  In  Cornwall,  on  the  other  hand,  amply 
equipped  for  thousands  of  tourists,  I  believe  it  is 
difficult  in  the  season  to  get  a  bed  !  while  at  least 
once  a  year  somebody  writes  a  glorified  guide-book 
to  the  county.  We  are  a  queer  people  !  A  voracious 
novel-reader  of  cjTiical  temperament  calculated  the 
other  day  that  forty  per  cent,  of  recent  novels,  directly 
or  indirectly  touching  country  Hfe,  and  written 
mainly,  of  course,  by  people  who  live  within  the 
London  orbit,  laid  the  scene,  or  the  rural  portions  of 
it,  in  Devonshire  or  Cornwall.  And  furthermore,  amid 
idyllic  thatch-roofed  villages,  which  are  relatively 
scarce  in  those  parts,  and  embellished  with  apple- 
faced  maids,  whereas  the  modern  Devon  peasant-girl 
in  the  south,  at  any  rate,  is  conspicuously  inclined  to 
anaemia,  which  is  not  altogether  surprising.  Con- 
ventionality and  poverty  of  experience  contribute,  I 
suppose,  to  this  topographical  banality.  One  would 
think  a  sense  of  humour  alone  would  turn  the  tap 
176 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

on  somewhere  else.  Why  not  place  the  *  ancestral 
home '  in  Rutland  for  a  change  ?  A  note  of  originality- 
would  be  struck  in  the  very  first  chapter,  and  ought 
to  score.  The  jaded  novel  reader  must  be  getting 
rather  tired  of  Devon  and  Cornwall. 

But  beyond  the  more  individual  characteristics  of 
Brecon  and  Radnor,  these  counties  share  in  their 
border  regions  with  Montgomery,  Cardigan,  and 
Carmarthen  the  wildest  and  most  untrodden  moun- 
tain wilderness  that  can  be  found  south  of  the  Scottish 
Highlands.  This  exceptional  seclusion  is  in  part,  no 
doubt,  due  to  the  fact  that  the  stock  of  grouse  they 
carry  is  so  insignificant  as  to  put  these  moors  and 
mountains  outside  the  purview  of  the  alien  sportsman. 
As  you  stand  upon  Plinlimmon,  above  the  infant 
springs  of  Wye  and  Severn,  and  look  southward  on 
a  clear  day,  you  can  see  nothing  as  far  as  the  eye  can 
reach  but  an  interminable  sea  of  mountain  tops  or 
high,  lonely  moorland  :  in  short,  the  most  uncom- 
promising solitude  upon  an  extended  scale  known  to 
me  anywhere  within  these  islands.  It  is  true  that 
in  the  Western  Highlands  you  may  look  upon  far 
more  expansive  and  more  boldly  uplifted  wastes. 
But  then,  written  large  all  over  them,  their  com- 
mercial value  seems  to  hit  you  in  the  eye.  Here  is 
the  Duke  of  Omnium's  deer  forest  leased  to  a  financier 
of  Semitic  name  and  urban  habit,  or  there  again  are 
notice-boards  erected  by  Mr.  Van  Schuyler  of  New 
York,  the  tenant  of  a  moor,  notifying  the  traveller 
through  the  wild  that  he  must  stick  to  the  road. 
Commercialism  is  thick  in  the  atmosphere.  You 
know  that  every  acre  is  listed  on  the  books  of  sporting 
M  177 


CLEAR  WATERS 

agents  in  Piccadilly,  or  their  equivalents,  and  that 
the  most  luxurious  men  and  women  in  the  world  are 
virtually  in  possession,  and  will  burst  in  here  at 
that  particular  moment  which  marks  this  item  in  the 
year's  social  programme  they  are  labouring  through.  A 
discordant  note,  surely,  and  an  exotic,  inharmonious 
element  when  you  come  to  think  of  it  in  a  country 
like  this !  And  then  there  is  what  might  be  termed 
the  opposition  crowd — the  men  and  women  who  have 
not  yet  arrived  at  the  shooting-box  stage,  and  are 
held  in  some  contempt  by  those  who  have — to  wit, 
the  tourists ;  and  lastly,  the  sharks  of  innkeepers. 
There  is  nothing  of  this  in  the  fastnesses  of  South 
Wales.  August  or  January,  it  is  all  the  same  as 
regards  humanity,  and  then  one  remembers  with  some- 
thing like  a  start  that  this  untrodden  country  is  barely 
a  six  hours'  railway  journey  from  Lqndon  ! 

It  is  into  the  eastern  edge  of  this  that  the  Elan  lakes 
thrust  their  sinuous  course.  You  may  almost  forget 
their  man-made  origin,  as  when  fishing  from  their 
farther  shore  you  feel  there  is  nothing  at  all  behind 
you.  Nothing  but  wastes  of  moor-grass  and  heather, 
of  lonely  valleys  and  unseen  waterfalls,  and  bleating 
sheep  and  plover,  curlews,  buzzards,  and  ravens,  a  few 
grouse,  and  even  yet  an  odd  pair  of  kites,  till  the  fair 
shire  of  Cardigan  unfolds  its  green,  rolling  map  of 
httle  farms  and  white-washed  homesteads,  with  its 
woody  brooks  hastening  by  them  to  meet  the  Irish 
Sea. 

Every  one  of  the  four  connected  and  irregular  sheets 
of  water  penetrating  these  hills  are  as  full  of  trout  as 
is  conceivably  desirable.  I  have  even  heard  one  or 
178 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

two  say  that  they  are  too  full.  So  when  the  angler 
has  filled  his  basket  (but  that  is  another  story)  he 
need  not  worry  about  going  home  lest  he  should  levy 
too  heavy  a  toll,  but  go  on  fishing,  if  he  feels  like  it, 
with  an  easy  conscience  and  a  light  heart.  I  have 
never  myself  been  in  that  enviable  position,  for  the 
fates  have  so  ordained  that  my  visits  have  always  fallen 
at  the  '  back '  end  of  the  season,  when  baskets  are  in- 
evitably much  lighter,  though  sometimes  of  reasonable 
weight.  Nor  are  these  imported  fish,  but  merely  the 
well-developed  descendants  of  the  little  fellows  which 
since  time  began  had  haunted  the  plashing  streams 
of  the  Elan  and  the  Claerwen  and  their  tributary 
burns.  Not  till  quite  recently,  in  deference,  I  fancy, 
to  outside  clamours,  have  any  alien  stock  been  put 
in.  When  waters  are  quite  full  of  the  best  kind  of 
native  stock,  and  the  only  future  anxiety  is  concerned 
with  the  food  supply,  to  put  in  more  fish  seems 
absurd.  New  blood,  too,  has  its  dangers.  The  intro- 
duction of  more  minnows  would  surely  be  more  to  the 
purpose  if  manipulate  you  must !  The  Elan  lakes  are 
not  midland  or  south  country  reservoirs,  but  are  of 
beautiful,  limpid  water,  borne  in  with  a  rush  by  rocky 
streams,  which  here  and  there  leap  with  a  gay  bound 
from  some  craggy,  birch-tufted  crag  right  into  the 
lake.  For  a  mile  or  so  up  the  lower  lake  of  Caban 
there  is  a  sloping  stone  embankment,  a  trifling  fore- 
ground blemish,  perhaps,  at  the  first  glimpse  of  it, 
and  the  only  one  which  many  tourists  on  wheels  carry 
away  with  them.  But  practically  everywhere  else  the 
waters  lap  naturally  against  such  bounds  as  nature 
set  them.     Here  upon  sloping,  half-drained  pastures, 

179 


CLEAR  WATERS 

rank  and  tufty  with  sedge  and  rushes  and  patches  of 
bog  and  dwarf  willows,  there  upon  low  bluffs  of  gorse 
and  heather.  Occasionally  wild,  tangled  woods  drop 
abruptly  to  rocky  banks,  along  which  you  may  labori- 
ously creep  if  you  are  in  the  mood  for  hard  work,  with 
an  off-chance  of  a  ducking,  and  for  casting  upon 
waters  scarcely  ever  touched.  Often,  too,  the  path 
of  the  fisherman  lies  upon  a  low,  firm  bank  of  turf 
and  bracken.  Indeed  there  is  infinite  variety,  which 
is  natural  enough  within  such  wide  limits.  There  are 
many  snug  bays,  too,  and  Httle  coves  formed  by  the 
outlet  of  burns  that  once  ran  rejoicing  out  of  narrow 
glens  into  the  two  main  streams.  And  at  the  head 
of  the  coves  there  is  often  a  cascade  tumbHng  into  the 
lake  between  feathered  crags,  and  stirring  the  water 
for  many  yards  below  over  a  shelving,  gravelly  bottom, 
and  forming  altogether  a  deHghtful  picture.  Such,  no 
angler  needs  telling,  are  spots  to  stimulate  his  ex- 
pectations, and  I  have  often  found  that  mine  have 
not  been  stirred  for  nothing  in  these  alluring  corners ; 
otherwise,  though  it  is  impossible  to  quite  acquiesce 
in  such  a  faith,  the  most  constant  habitues  hold  that 
with  all  the  variety  here  displayed  in  so  great  an  area, 
one  place  is  just  about  as  good  as  another. 

This  is  comforting  as  regards  the  various  portions 
of  the  various  lakes,  and  I  do  believe  that  a  stranger 
starting  to  fish  at  the  first  point  he  struck  would  have 
as  good  a  chance,  so  far  as  the  presence  of  trout  were 
concerned,  as  a  man  who  had  frequented  the  lakes 
ever  since  they  were  formed,  and  knew  every  yard  of 
them.  They  differ,  of  course,  from  natural  lakes  in 
having  practically  no  shallow  water.  Two  to  three 
1 80 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH   WALES 

yards  from  the  shore  would  drown  you  almost  any- 
where. There  is  not  the  scope  for  sagacity  and  ex- 
perience in  the  lie  of  fish  that  is  afforded  by  bank 
fishing  or  wading  a  natural  lake.  Yet  one  acquires 
fancies  for  particular  spots  upon  the  Elan  lakes,  and  is 
happier,  perhaps,  for  such  delusions,  if  delusions  they 
be.  There  is  assuredly  some  room  for  intuition  in 
the  varied  nature  of  the  bank,  the  little  patches  of 
weed,  the  submerged  rock,  the  projecting  bush  of 
alder  or  willow  scrub,  the  out- jutting  point  of  bank, 
on  the  far  side  of  which,  and  well  out  of  sight,  you 
feel  sure,  there  is  a  trout  lying,  as  there  very  often  is. 
It  is  curious,  too,  how  standardised  in  weight  these 
trout  have  become.  In  Y-shaped  Caban-Coch,  the 
lower  dam  being  the  pedestal  of  the  stem,  they  average 
two-thirds  of  a  pound.  In  the  smaller  lake  of  Dol-y- 
mynach,  at  the  extremity  of  the  left  arm,  into  which 
the  Claerwen  flows,  they  run  a  trifle  over  a  pound. 
In  the  middle  lake  of  Pen-y-gareg,  beyond  the  right 
arm,  which  is  much  longer  than  the  left,  they  scale  as 
in  Caban-Coch.  In  the  top  lake  of  Craig-Coch,  a 
mile  and  a  half  long,  into  the  head  of  which  the  Elan 
flows,  the  fish  are  a  good  deal  smaller,  and  run  about 
three  to  the  pound. 

Much  larger  fish  are  frequently  caught  in  all  these 
lakes,  but  on  the  whole  this  average  is  fairly  uniform. 
They  are  good-fighting  fish,  particularly  the  pounders 
and  over,  in  Dol-y-mynach  (the  meadow  of  the  monk). 
On  being  hooked  these  last  generally  make  straight  for 
the  middle  of  the  lake  at  racing  pace,  and  break  many 
an  unwary  angler  who  fails  to  humour  them  properly 
at  the  first  rush.     Medium-sized,  ordinary  trout-flies 

i8i 


CLEAR  WATERS 

are  used,  and  for  the  '  back-end,'  besides  the  March 
brown,  effective  here  throughout  the  season,  and  a 
claret  and  mallard,  there  is  a  wonderfully  killing 
local  fly  known  as  the  C6ch-yn-las.  Spinning  is  only 
allowed  in  certain  places,  and  rightly  so.  The  out- 
flowing river  runs  straight  down  a  riotous  course  of 
some  three  miles,  from  the  high  bottom  dam,  beneath 
which,  at  the  mountain  foot,  the  company  have  built 
a  very  pretty  model  village  for  its  employes,  to  the 
Wye.  The  road  from  Rhayader,  which  little  town 
sometimes  gives  its  name  to  the  lakes,  and  is,  so  to 
speak,  their  metropolis,  runs  more  or  less  up  the  valley 
and  then  skirts  the  lakes  up  both  forks  to  their  head- 
waters. A  wild,  rock-plated,  mountain  ridge,  beauti- 
fully dominating  the  Wye  valley,  drops  sharply  down 
at  its  remoter  side  into  the  lakes  along  their  whole 
extent,  and  virtually  cuts  them  off,  save  by  mountain 
foot  trails,  from  the  outer  world.  These  semi-pre- 
cipitous, western  slopes,  ablaze  in  its  season  with  great 
splashes  of  heather,  nobly  confront  you  as,  with  your 
back  to  the  illimitable  wilderness,  you  fish  the  farther 
shores  of  Caban,  Pen-y-gareg,  and  Craig-C6ch.  A 
single  road  of  sorts,  however,  crosses  the  northern  ex- 
tremity of  this  mountain  wall.  This  is  the  old  and 
now  more  than  half-deserted  highway  to  Aberyst- 
with.  A  mere  farmer's  road,  you  may  climb  it  for  a 
laborious  three  miles  from  Rhayader  up  a  most  lovely 
glen  with  a  small  lake  in  the  meadows  below,  and 
riven  by  the  white  flash  of  a  continuously  leaping 
torrent.  At  the  summit  you  emerge  on  to  a  bleak, 
moorland  watershed,  whence  in  due  course  the  stony 
track  drops  abruptly  for  a  mile  or  so  to  the  lonely 
182 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

hollow  where  the  Elan  comes  brawling  out  of  the 
wilderness  into  the  rocky  gorge  which  forms  the  head 
of  Craig-Coch. 

From  this  head  of  the  pass  you  may  look  down  on  the 
lake  spreading  far  beneath  you,  wild  and  gloomy,  in 
dark  weather,  ruffling  white-ribbed  in  the  wind 
against  its  moorish,  peaty  banks,  while  the  untamed, 
primeval  hills  roll  away  behind  it  to  the  far  horizon 
like  a  stormy  sea.  From  this  height,  too,  you  can 
look  straight  up  the  narrow,  level  valley  of  the  Elan 
cleaving  its  way  through  the  billows  of  the  hills,  and  for 
a  considerable  distance  mark  its  silvery  coils  amid  the 
bogs  and  mosses  as  it  comes  hurrying  down  from  the 
back-of-beyond  to  its  now  arrested  course  in  these 
tremendous  waterworks.  You  can  see  also  the  big  hump 
of  Plinlimmon  not  far  away,  and  upon  the  northern 
horizon  the  up-reared  mass  of  Cader  Idris  piled 
nobly  against  the  sky.  On  a  fine  day  this  is  an  inspir- 
ing roof-top.  In  a  storm — well,  there  is  no  refuge. 
Through  the  August  of  191 2,  the  wettest  and  wildest 
on  record,  a  battery  of  artillery  were  camped  here, 
I  believe  they  spent  much  of  their  nights  and  days 
in  chasing  their  tents  across  the  mountains  and  gave 
up  attempting  to  dry  their  clothes  quite  early  in  the 
campaign.  This,  too,  was  the  road  over  which  honey- 
mooners  and  others  posted  or  coached  to  Aberystwith 
in  pre-Victorian  times,  when  Aberystwith  was  quite 
the  fashion.  The  untravelled  Essex  squire  may  well 
have  wondered  where  he  was  getting  to,  and  the  young 
lady  '  of  sensibility '  on  the  look  out  for  something  to 
faint  at  must  have  had  infinite  opportunities. 

Wheels  are  scarcely  worth  bringing  over  this  rough, 

183 


CLEAR  WATERS 

perpendicular  road,  though  the  irrepressible  motor 
occasionally,  I  believe,  surmounts  it.  If  you  have  a 
mind  for  a  real  solitary  day  amid  the  wilds  on  Craig- 
Coch,  with  the  expectation  of  catching,  if  fortune 
be  yours,  rather  smaller  fish,  and  rather  more  of  them, 
it  is  better  to  walk  and  have  done  with  it.  Save  your 
companion  anglers,  if  you  have  any,  you  will  see  no 
one,  and  hear  nothing  but  the  curlews'  call  and  the 
ravens'  croak,  while  the  buzzard,  of  which  there  are 
great  numbers  in  these  wilds,  will  be  generally  swinging 
somewhere  in  the  air  above. 

For  this  great  heaped-up  wilderness  of  South  Wales, 
some  five  or  six  hundred  square  miles  in  extent,  is  about 
the  last  refuge  of  the  hunted  of  the  air,  and  long  may 
it  remain  such  a  sanctuary.  Nature,  assisted  possibly 
by  the  sheep's  tooth,  has  helped  to  make  it  so  by 
affording  small  temptation  to  game  preserving  and 
keepering,  while  a  local  protection  society,  working 
with  the  scattered  sheep  farmers,  whose  homesteads 
at  intervals  dot  the  edge  of  the  waste,  keep  an  eye  on 
the  nests,  and  on  the  indefatigable  egg-stealer  from 
distant  cities.  As  the  spawning  season  approaches, 
the  fish  from  Craig-Coch  swarm  up  the  Elan,  which 
offers  no  obstacles,  into  the  inmost  heart  of  the  hills. 
Not  only  the  lakes  but  a  good  many  streams  and  natural 
tarns  are  within  or  just  without  this  great  corporation 
estate,  and  can  be  fished  either  free  or  by  ticket.  The 
Elan  is  free  to  the  natives  of  Rhayader,  and  after  a 
flood  in  late  August  or  September  they  come  over 
the  hills  in  tolerable  numbers  and  take  heavy  toll 
with  worm  and  fly  of  these  migrants  from  the  lake. 
This  sounds  rather  badly.  But  like  so  many  things 
184 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

associated  with  trout,  it  is  not  so  bad  as  it  sounds,  the 
stock  of  fish  in  the  lakes  being  so  plentiful.  And  what 
are  four  or  five  thousand,  which  is  the  average  recorded 
number  taken  per  annum  out  of  the  whole  basin  ? — 
practically  nothing  !  And  what  again  are  the  two  or 
three  hundred  captured,  at  any  rate  fairly,  from  the 
Elan,  out  of  the  thousands  which  doubtless  run  up 
and  deposit  their  countless  young  ? 

The  pounders  of  Dol-y-mynach  have  no  such  easy 
voyage  up  the  rugged  bed  of  the  Claerwen,  or  anything 
like  such  a  length  of  spawning-grounds  there.  For 
within  a  mile  or  less  they  encounter  a  natural  water- 
fall, a  beautiful  one  it  is  too,  that  the  most  persistent 
trout  may  not  surmount.  The  Claerwen  is  auto- 
matically in  the  corporation  preserve,  and  that  there 
is  some  evil  as  well  as  much  good  in  close  preservation, 
as  I  have  always  ventured  to  think,  seems  in  this  stream 
to  find  some  confirmation.  The  Claerwen  is  nowa- 
days very  little  fished,  for  it  contains  mostly  fingerlings, 
though  last  summer  I  did  see  a  trout  of  two  and 
three-quarter  pounds  on  its  way  to  be  stuffed,  that  had 
been  killed  on  it  above  the  falls  with  a  fly,  an  accident 
of  course.  But  as  regards  degeneracy  in  size,  an  old 
local  angler,  who  fishes  the  lakes  regularly,  and  has  no 
cause  for  bias,  tells  me  that  in  former  days  before  these 
were  made  and  the  Claerwen  was  an  open  stream 
moderately  poached  with  nets  by  the  sheep  farmers 
who  live  on  it,  there  was  excellent  fishing  there,  and  the 
trout  ran  nearly  four  to  the  pound,  with  the  plentiful 
sprinkling  of  half-pounders  that  such  an  average  in- 
dicates. Now  it  is  full  of  sprats,  a  sign,  no  doubt, 
that  there  is  not  food  enough  to  go  round.     In  some 

185 


CLEAR  WATERS 

cases  a  plethora  of  fingerlings  may  mean  a  heavily 
poached  stream,  in  others  an  under-fished  one.  It 
is  as  certain  that  the  Claerwen  is  no  longer  poached  as 
that  it  regularly  was  so  till  ten  years  ago,  when  the  lakes 
were  completed. 

There  are  a  few  little  homesteads  up  the  Claerwen  as 
indeed  there  are  up  the  wilder  Elan,  before  it  disappears 
into  the  waste.  They  have  their  backs  to  the  wilder- 
ness, count  their  sheep  by  the  thousand,  and  take  no 
count  of  acres.  Anxious  to  be  more  handy  to  the 
pounders  of  Dol-y-mynach  two  or  three  years  ago,  I 
made  arrangements  with  an  old  lady  flock-owner,  in- 
habiting a  quaint  little  farmhouse  above  the  Claerwen, 
to  put  me  up  for  two  or  three  days.  A  brace  of  fish, 
up  to  a  pound  each,  was  the  rather  scanty  reward  of 
the  afternoon  of  my  arrival,  a  result  not  tempered 
by  the  breaking  away  of  two  more  good  fish.  A  stiff 
rod  and  drawn  gut  are  an  ill-assorted  combination  ; 
I  would  sooner  dispense  with  the  last,  however,  than 
the  first  and  take  my  chance.  The  blend  is  well 
enough  for  the  dry  fly,  with  all  the  leisurely  delibera- 
tion of  both  angler  and  fish,  but  when  a  pounder,  bred 
in  mountain  water,  dashes  up  from  the  depths  after  a 
blank  half-hour,  and  startles  you — well,  yes — out  of  a 
day-dream,  the  brief  contact  is  apt  to  be  more  than 
could  fairly  be  asked  of  a  drawn  gut  point.  In  a  flash 
it  is  all  over,  and  you  sit  down  to  vain  anathemas  and 
to  that  most  depressing  and  baneful  of  all  riverside 
operations,  the  replacing  of  a  fly,  or  perhaps  worse  still, 
of  half  a  cast,  that  through  your  own  bungling  or  care- 
lessness has  been  carried  into  the  depths  by  a  good  fish. 

But  the  lakes  on  this  occasion  were  low  and  clear. 
1 86 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

It  was  191 1,  the  year  of  the  great  drought,  and  these 
were   the   last   three  hours  of  it  in  that  part  of  the 
country.     Before  dark  the  heavens  were  descending 
in  soHd  sheets,  and  continued  to  plump  like  a  water- 
spout upon  an  earth  as  nearly  parched  as  these  be- 
dewed Welsh  hiUs  can  ever  be.     In  the  morning  the 
Claerwen  roared  in  angry  flood  among  its  half-sub- 
merged boulders,  and  swept  rising  volumes  of  porter- 
coloured  water  to  further  churn  the  soft  bottom  of 
Dol-y-mynach,  and  transform  its  tired  summer-long 
clarity  into  an  excellent  imitation  of  pea-soup.     The 
quite  obvious  thing  to  do  on  a  week's  fishing  holiday, 
when  the  water  must  be  stuck  to  as  a  matter  of  prin- 
ciple, would  be  to  repair  thither  with  a  worm,  in  this 
case  to  some  quiet  backwater  of  the  Claerwen.  I  wasn't 
out,  however,  for  a  week's  holiday,  but  rambling  at 
large,  and  I  do  not  care  for  worming  in  thick  water — 
it  really  is  a  degrading  business — nor  did  I  want  any 
fish,  the  only  possible  excuse  for  it,  as  I  am  not  very 
partial  to  trout,  and  it  was  an  almost  impossible  place 
to  dispatch  them  from  to  friends  who  are.     Indeed 
there  was  only  a  post  twice  a  week  from  the  farm. 
The  latter,  though  small  and  simple  of  exterior,  had 
many  points  both  interesting  and  picturesque.     The 
long,  low  kitchen,  for  instance,  had  the  living  rock  for 
a  large  portion  of  its  floor.     The  small  outbuildings 
of  native  stone  were  so  massive  and  weather-stained, 
and  so  prolific  in  moss,  ferns,  and  even  ash  saplings 
upon  the  walls  and  roofs,  though  neat  enough  within, 
that  they  almost  appeared  to  be  the  work  of  nature 
rather  than  of  bygone  Welshmen.     A  mountain  rill 
brought   down  on  a   trough  spouted  into  the  yard. 

187 


CLEAR  WATERS 

The  old  lady  had  a  thousand  sheep  on  the  hills,  which 
were  looked  after  by  a  son  and  a  hired  man.  She 
and  her  neat,  nice-looking  daughter  worked  with 
apparently  ceaseless  and  cheerful  energy,  and  when 
her  labours  were  done  she  sat  in  the  ingle-nook  and 
smoked  the  pipe  of  peace.  Her  husband  had  been  a 
man  of  character,  and  renowned  for  his  almost  trucu- 
lent integrity.  I  have  heard  in  Rhayader  that  when 
slightly  market-peart  he  used  to  ride  down  the  street 
with  a  halfpenny  attached  to  the  point  of  a  stick, 
daring  any  to  say  he  owed  them  even  so  much.  The 
next  neighbour  to  the  westward  was  nine  miles  away 
across  the  sheep  ranges  ! 

As  the  next  day  was  clear,  but  the  waters  still  thick, 
I  thought  I  would  ascend  Drygarn.  Now  Drygarn  is 
the  monarch  of  all  this  waste  south  of  Plinlimmon,  and 
is  some  twenty-two  hundred  feet  high,  with  a  large 
cairn  on  the  top.  I  found  my  way  there  in  a  couple 
of  hours,  and  as  we  breakfasted  betimes  on  the  farm 
I  was  on  the  mountain  top  by  nine  o'clock.  But  the 
walking  on  these  south  Welsh  moors  is  unique  in 
Britain,  unless  you  know  the  shepherds'  paths,  which 
are  not  always  traceable,  so  hopelessly  intermingled 
is  the  soft  going  with  the  hard.  Half  these  mountains 
are  boggy  enough  to  let  in  a  horse,  though  they  will 
carry  a  man,  but  the  tussocky  moor  grass  is  always 
knee-high,  and  occasionally  waist-high.  The  view 
from  Drygarn,  which  throws  up  a  hard,  rocky  crown, 
was  glorious  on  that  glittering  summer  morning. 
I  could  see  the  whole  heaped-up,  tawny  wilderness 
from  Plinlimmon  to  the  Epynt,  and  beyond  the 
Epynt  and  the  hidden  vale  of  Usk  the  sharp  outlines 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

and  shadowy  masses  of  the  Brecon  Beacons  leaped 
high  into  the  sky.  I  looked  westward  over  the  wilder- 
ness, across  the  wild  valleys  down  which  with  the  eye 
of  memory  I  could  see  the  upper  waters  of  the  Yrvon 
and  the  Towy  churning  and  boiling  southward  in 
their  deep  rock-bound  chasms.  I  could  see  with  the 
naked  eye  over  the  farthest  edge  of  the  solitary  moors 
to  the  green  lowlands  of  Cardigan,  and  beyond  them 
in  a  blue  haze  the  Irish  Sea.  For  it  was  nine  o'clock 
on  a  fresh,  bright,  summer  morning.  To  the  eastward, 
beyond  the  nearer  mountains,  in  whose  hollows  the 
Elan  lakes  were  winding,  stretched  away  the  valley  of 
the  Wye,  easy  enough,  if  you  know  it,  to  keep  track 
of  by  its  sentinel  hills  from  Rhayader  to  far  Aberedw, 
where  it  breaks  its  tempestuous  way  through  the 
Epynt  range  towards  the  English  border.  Radnor 
forest,  topped  by  Black  Mixon,  rolled  its  blue-rounded 
summits  against  the  far  sky-line. 

Looking  over  the  nearer  waste  with  my  glasses  I 
soon  made  out,  some  three  or  four  miles  away,  the  red 
scaur  which  I  had  been  told  marked  the  site  of  the 
little  tarn  of  Llyn  Carw,  hard  to  come  at,  rarely 
sought,  but  famous  in  local  gossip  for  its  handsome 
trout,  and  I  took  my  bearings.  Next  morning  the 
lakes  were  still  too  thick,  and  having  fished  theClaerwen, 
which  was  in  fine  order,  but  so  full  of  hungry  fingerlings 
that  an  accidental  quarter-pounder  almost  upset  my 
nerves,  I  started  after  lunch  with  a  rod  to  hunt  for 
Llyn  Carw,  which  my  host  had  told  me  was  three 
miles  away,  but  difficult  to  find.  I  found  it  both,  and 
most  of  the  walking,  as  usual  in  these  hills,  very  labor- 
ious for  the  soft,  boggy  holding  and  the  long,  tussocky 

189 


CLEAR  WATERS 

grass.  Llyn  Carw  may  possibly  cover  two  acres. 
Nearly  half  of  it,  however,  is  hopelessly  shallow,  with 
a  fine  gravel  bottom,  while  the  remainder  resembles 
a  big  bog-hole.  It  was  a  drear,  dull,  and  cold  Sep- 
tember afternoon.  Llyn  Carw,  moreover,  is  a  gloomy 
tarn,  and  a  chill  ripple  puffed  over  its  surface.  One 
really  needs  a  companion  on  its  banks.  I  felt  almost 
*  creepy '  as  I  mounted  my  tackle,  though  it  seemed 
superfluous  to  cast  a  fly  for  sulky  minnow-feeding 
pounders  under  such  conditions.  To  my  great  sur- 
prise, however,  I  saw  of  a  sudden  the  head  and  shoul- 
ders of  a  large  fish  pop  noiselessly  up  in  a  businesslike 
fashion  towards  the  middle  of  the  tarn.  By  wading 
in  up  to  my  knees,  and  letting  out  as  much  line  as  I 
could  throw,  I  found  I  could  just  reach  the  spot. 
He  took  me  at  the  very  first  offer,  and  ran  straight 
across  the  pool,  and  then — well,  perhaps  the  gut 
of  the  claret  and  mallard  was  frayed;  perhaps  the 
knot  had  been  a  carelessly  tied  one,  and  pulled.  It 
was  a  hopeless-looking  evening,  conducive,  I  fear, 
to  carelessness  in  preliminaries,  though  that  was  no 
excuse.  Anyway,  he  broke  me  with  a  tug  that  a 
quarter-pounder  could  have  delivered,  which  was 
grievous,  as  not  another  sign  of  life  showed  itself  upon 
the  desolate  tarn,  though  I  flogged  it  all  hard.  Such 
was  my  sole  and  sad  experience  of  Llyn  Carw. 

Some  thirty  to  forty  fish  in  all  are  caught  here  in 
most  years,  roughly  averaging  a  pound.  Strangers, 
however,  rarely  make  the  toilsome  pilgrimage.  Nor, 
again,  do  they  get  to  the  much  larger  natural  tarns, 
the  twin  lakes  of  Cerig-llwydion.  These  are  four 
miles  up  hill  over  the  rough,  pathless  moors  from  the 
190 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

farther  shores  of  Craig-C6ch  and  the  nearest  road. 
A  few  local  anglers  camp  out  up  there  every  May, 
and  I  have  their  records,  which  are  good,  but  other- 
wise I  fancy  these  two  lakes  are  never  touched.  In  the 
lower  one  the  fish  average  just  half  a  pound;  in  the 
upper  so  many  to  the  pound  as  to  be  hardly  worth 
catching.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the  appearance  of 
these  two  contiguous  lakes  to  suggest  a  reason  for  this 
extraordinary  contrast.  So,  too,  if  the  parenthesis 
will  be  pardoned,  high  up  in  the  arms  of  the  Rhinog 
mountains  in  Merionethshire,  just  above  the  savage 
pass  of  Ardudwy  and  amid  some  of  the  finest  rock 
scenery  in  Wales,  there  are  two  lakes  almost  as  near 
together — the  one  a  sort  of  crater  formation  cover- 
ing perhaps  twenty  acres  and  very  deep,  the  other 
within  sight  of  it,  about  two  acres  and  comparatively 
shallow.  In  the  larger  lake  there  is  nothing  at  all  but 
fingerlings,  with  grotesquely  big  heads  and  scarcely 
even  fit  for  the  table,  which  rise  greedily.  In  the 
smaller  pool,  barren  and  naked  as  its  environment,  any 
fish  you  may  catch  will  be  a  pound  or  over.  Practi- 
cally, however,  no  one  but  a  very  occasional  local  ever 
wets  a  line  on  these  waters,  for  it  takes  nearly  two  hours 
of  stiff  climbing  to  reach  them  from  the  head  of  a 
remote  valley.  I  have  done  so  once  myself,  and  that 
too,  quite  recently.  Curiosity  and  the  weirdness  of 
the  surroundings  was  one  motive,  the  other  was  the 
company  of  a  friend  learned  in  lichens,  varieties  of 
which,  unknown,  I  believe,  elsewhere  in  Britain,  flourish 
up  here,  if  such  a  verb  can  be  used  in  regard  to  what 
looks  to  the  lay  eye  but  a  dark  stain  upon  the  rock. 
Ravens  also  flourish,  and  their  hoarse,  untiring  cries 

191 


CLEAR  WATERS 

of  protest  at  the  rare  intruder  harmonise  admirably 
with  the  quite  savage  scene.  The  misshapen  finger- 
hngs  came  out  two  at  a  time,  but  the  Httle  tarn  of 
the  pounders,  sheltered  from  almost  every  wind,  lay 
glassy  and  hopeless.  This  wild  domain,  by  the  way, 
was  the  property  of  Cromwell's  brother-in-law,  the 
regicide  Colonel  Jones  of  Maesygarnedd,  whose  *  smok- 
ing quarters,'  fresh  from  Charles  ii.'s  vengeance,  Pepys 
encountered  as  he  was  going  home  to  dinner.  The 
ancient  Uttle  manor-house  where  he  lived, '  the  wildest 
farmhouse  in  Wales,'  as  the  guide-books  call  it,  is  just 
below,  that  is  to  say,  two  hours  below  the  lakes,  and 
is  still  occupied  by  his  descendant. 

But  to  return  to  the  Elan  valley,  not  a  word  of 
tribute  has  yet  been  paid  to  what  may  fairly  be  called 
in  a  more  modern  sense  its  genius  loci.  No  properly 
constituted  angler,  I  hope,  could  throw  his  fly  without  a 
thrill  over  the  vanished  roof-tree  where  Shelley  spent 
two  long  summers,  the  second  of  which  was  that  of 
his  honeymoon  with  the  ill-fated  Harriet  Westbrook. 
To  be  precise,  there  were  in  this  case  two  country 
houses  submerged,  about  a  mile  from  each  other,  both 
belonging  to  the  owner  of  the  romantic  Nantgwillt 
estate,  included  in  the  Birmingham  purchase — Nant- 
gwillt itself,  which  stood  in  the  fork  of  the  Y,  looking 
right  down  to  where  the  big  lower  dam  now  is,  and 
Cwm  Elan  a  mile  or  so  up  its  right  arm.  If  standing 
to-day  their  respective  chimney-tops  would,  I  beHeve, 
be  just  under  water.  Though  not  remarkable  struc- 
tures in  themselves  the  situation,  surroundings,  and 
outlook  of  these  abodes  of  an  old  Welsh  stock  were 
exquisite.  I  can  recall  nothing  of  their  kind,  even  in 
192 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

Wales,  more  beautiful.  Shelley  came  here  after  his 
expulsion  from  Oxford,  and  the  rupture  of  his  engage- 
ment with  his  cousin  Harriet  Grove,  whose  family- 
had  some  land  here,  and  the  consequent  row  with  his 
wholly  unsympathetic  father.  It  was  from  Cwm  Elan 
in  1811  he  wrote  consenting  to  elope  with  Harriet 
Westbrook,  and  it  was  to  Nantgwillt  that  he  brought 
her  in  181 2.  And,  as  I  have  said,  you  may  to-day, 
uncanny  though  the  thought  of  it,  catch  trout  over 
the  very  rooms  which  witnessed  the  transient  loves  of 
the  poet  and  his  doomed  wife,  and  all  thereto  pertain- 
ing which,  with  the  tragic  sequel,  have  exercised  so 
many  pens  and  fascinated  thousands  of  readers. 

Yet  more,  perhaps  it  was  in  these  submerged  walls 
that  the  boyish  poet  wrote  the  very  first  stanzas  of  that 
immortal  treasury  of  song  which  have  been  preserved 
to  us.  It  was  his  first  acquaintance,  at  any  rate,  with 
the  sublime  in  nature.  His  letters  glow  with  the 
divine  glories  of  the  spot,  as  well  they  may,  and  end 
with  curses  on  its  distance  from  a  post-office.  His 
first  solitary  summer  here  saw  him  in  the  depths  of 
despondency ;  his  second,  newly  wedded  and  in  the 
heights  of  bliss.  As  a  blithe  bridegroom  at  Nant- 
gwillt he  recalls  his  former  melancholy  at  Cwm  Elan 
as  a  jilted  lover,  a  disgraced  son,  and  an  expelled 
undergraduate. 

A  scene  which  wildered  fancy  viewed 

In  the  soul's  coldest  solitude, 

With  that  same  scene  when  peaceful  love 

Flings  rapture's  colour  o'er  the  grove  ; 

When  mountain,  meadow,  wood,  and  stream 

With  unalloying  glory  gleam, 


CLEAR  WATERS 

And  to  the  spirit's  ear  and  eye 

Are  unison  and  harmony. 

The  moonlight  was  my  dearer  day ; 

Then  would  I  wander  far  away, 

And  lingering  on  the  wild  brook's  shore 

To  hear  its  unremitting  roar, 

Would  lose  in  the  ideal  flow 

All  sense  of  overwhelming  woe. 

There  is  a  good  hotel  near  the  new  Elan  village 
below  the  big  dam,  while  the  Black  Lion  at  Rhayader 
is  an  excellent  and  snug  headquarters  for  fishermen, 
to  say  nothing  of  many  good  private  apartments.  If 
other  holiday-makers  besides  fishermen  knew  what 
like  was  the  neighbourhood  of  Rhayader,  what  abound- 
ing walks  through  scenes  in  all  directions  fit  for  the 
gods,  its  limited  capacities  for  entertainment  would  of 
a  truth  avail  little.  Is  South  Wales  pretty  ?  Again 
what  can  be  said  for  the  banality  of  such  an  utterance, 
as  if  dubious  whether  it  might  be  as  uplifting  as  Sussex 
or  Surrey,  or  other  stock  regions  familiar  to  the  Ken- 
singtonian  week-ender ! 

Rhayader  fell  into  the  English  speech  nearly  a  cen- 
tury ago,  though  the  ancient  tongue  still  holds  a 
steadily  waning  grip  upon  the  highlands  to  the  west 
of  it.  Hence  its  lapse  into  English-Welsh  from 
Rhaiadr  Gwy,  the  cataract  of  Wye,  its  true  name, 
and  one  obvious  enough  since  the  river  takes  a  big  leap 
through  a  gorge,  beneath  a  single  arch  and  bridge  on 
the  town  street.  This  is  a  famous  salmon  leap,  and 
more  traditionally  associated  with  poaching  conflicts, 
I  should  imagine,  than  any  other  salmon-pass  in  Britain. 
The  Welsh  peasantry,  on  the  face  of  it,  are  the  most 
194 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

determined  fish-poachers  in  the  kingdom.  But  their 
peculiar  partiality  for  this  form  of  law-breaking,  and 
their  persistence  in  it,  is  not  mere  cussedness,  for  the 
country  folk  at  any  rate  are  the  reverse  of  turbulent  in 
other  things,  and  not  much  of  game-poachers  in  an 
ordinary  sense.  But  Rhayader  falls  is  famous  for  its 
past  scenes  of  conflict  and  for  the  ineradicable  con- 
viction of  their  provokers  that  the  salmon  is  somehow 
public  property.  This  undoubtedly  reprehensible 
tradition  is  rather  different  from  the  ordinary  poaching 
attitude  elsewhere,  where  a  few  offenders,  half-mer- 
cenary, half-sporting  law-breakers,  have  the  rest  of  the 
community  against  them. 

For  the  Welsh  traditions  one  must  grope  in  the 
mists  of  the  past,  and  you  cannot  expect  Mr.  Smith 
from  Manchester,  who  has  a  rod,  let  us  say,  on  the 
Dovey,  to  do  this.  He  only  sees  the  most  irrepressible 
fish-poachers  in  the  United  Kingdom,  and  as  such 
damns  them  up  hill  and  down  dale  with  all  the  vigour 
at  his  command.  But  you  cannot  make  any  native 
Welshman,  however  respectable,  regard  a  fish-poacher 
as  a  criminal.  He  will  deplore  the  practice  as  an- 
tagonistic to  private  rights  and  the  public  interest, 
his  own  sometimes  included.  But  you  might  as  well 
try  and  make  a  Kentucky  man  regard  the  survivor  of  a 
'  little  difficulty '  as  a  murderer  as  make  a  true  Welsh- 
man hold  a  fish-poacher  as  a  serious  malefactor.  He 
would  tell  you  that  if  the  law,  which  inherited  tradition 
wrongly  or  rightly  considers  unjust,  winks  at  a  certain 
amount  of  salmon-poaching,  the  people,  farmers  as 
well  as  the  more  regular  poachers,  will  meet  the  law 
halfway,   as   it   were,   and   not   take   toll   enough   to 

195 


CLEAR  WATERS 

materially  decrease  the  stock.     If,  on  the  other  hand, 
a  great  parade  of  repression,  or  a  special  show  of  force 
is   made,    fresh   watchers   imported   and   so   on,   the 
ordinary  transgressors  redouble  their  efforts  wherever 
they  can  from  mere  antagonism,  and  some  who  are 
not  chronic  offenders  are  moved  to  take  a  hand  from 
the    same    motives.     I    am    not    defending    such    an 
attitude,  but  merely  stating  an  ordinary  truth  familiar 
not  to  every  one  who  fishes,  or  even  who  lives  in  Wales, 
but  to  every  one  who  understands  the  country.     It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  Welsh  radicalism,  though  the 
improper  sympathy  of  Welsh  radical  magistrates  with 
poachers  naturally  makes  some  people  think  so.     It 
existed  long  before  there  were  any  radicals  at  all  to 
speak  of  in  the  Principality.     It  is  a  kind  of  instinct 
that  the  people  have  certain  rights  in  the  fish,  traceable 
probably   to    far-away   days    if    not   actually   to   the 
tribal  period  of  the  Welsh  princes.     The  feudalism 
which  was  slowly  grafted  on  this  by  Norman  influences 
or  gradual  Norman  conquest  was  easier  in  these  respects 
than  the  cast-iron  game  laws  which  the  Normans  set 
up  and  enforced  after  their  rapid  conquest  of  England. 
Some   echoes   of   this    from   old   times   undoubtedly 
account  for  the  fact  that  an  otherwise  law-abiding 
people  have  never  in  their  hearts  accepted  the  law 
in  this  one  particular,  if  they  do  so  with  their  lips. 
For  it  must  be  remembered  that  the  sanctity  of  rod 
fishing  in  mountain  districts  is  quite  a  modern  thing. 
In  the  abstract  it  is  a  rather  interesting  situation. 
Many    things,    irrelevant    here,    have    conduced    to 
eliminate  the  old,  violent  salmon-poaching  at  Rhayader. 
Perhaps  education  has  lessened  the  zeal  for  a  bloody 
196 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

fight.  For  the  Wye,  now  so  valuable,  is  rigorously 
watched.  In  some  parts  of  Wales  trout-poaching  by 
net,  line,  and  even  dynamite  is,  or  was,  persistent, 
particularly  in  the  country  of  the  slate  quarries.  But 
the  Rhayader  poacher  I  don't  think  takes  risks  on  trout. 
The  Elan  lakes  are  from  their  nature  proof  against 
profitable  poaching  on  the  sly,  and  are  the  creations 
of  private  enterprise,  not  of  the  Almighty.  Further- 
more, the  trout  interests  of  all  kinds  are  very  strong 
in  Rhayader  among  the  local  folk,  who  are  often  keen 
anglers,  and  there  are  several  miles  of  free  fishing  on 
the  Wye,  with  some  salmon  catches  on  it.  But  the 
really  fine  salmon-fishing  for  which  the  Wye,  since 
the  nets  were  restricted,  is  now  again  becoming  famous, 
really  commences  a  little  below  Rhayader,  and  it 
doesn't  concern  us  here. 

By  the  same  token  the  trout-fishing,  which  is  pretty 
good  in  places  from  here  to  the  source  of  the  river, 
only  extends,  in  any  sense  worth  mentioning,  for  a  few 
miles  below.  This  is  not  because  the  river  changes 
in  character.  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  a 
more  beautiful,  buoyant,  lovely  looking  water  than  the 
Wye  from  here  all  the  way  to  Glasbury.  Forty  years 
ago  fine  baskets  of  trout  could  be  killed  anywhere. 
But  whether  it  is  the  depredations  of  the  pike,  which 
have  pushed  up  nearly  to  Rhayader,  or  the  crowding 
of  the  chub,  which  are  terribly  prevalent  a  little 
below,  no  one  seems  to  know.  But  in  any  case  suc- 
cessful fly  fishing  for  trout  has  ceased  to  be  an  item 
below  Doldowlod  or  Newbridge,  and  I  do  not  suppose 
the  increased  number  of  salmon  fry  in  the  river  much 
helps  matters.     Nice   baskets  of  three-to-the-pound 

197 


CLEAR  WATERS 

fish,  however,  are  killed  in  the  private  waters  immedi- 
ately below  Rhayader. 

This  twelve-mile  stretch  of  the  Wye  from  Rhayader 
downwards  is,  I  think,  as  beautiful  as  any  of  the 
sections  or  sub-sections  into  which  the  queen  of 
English  and  Welsh  rivers  naturally  falls,  and  I  know 
the  river  well  from  its  source  to  its  mouth.  Just 
below  the  little  town  the  Elan  comes  racing  in  from 
the  west,  and  the  big  dam,  three  miles  away,  glitters 
brightly  over  a  foreground  of  green  meadows,  behind 
which  the  bold  and  rugged  masses  of  the  Cwm  Toyddur 
hills  form  an  imposing  background  as  well  as  a  barrier 
to  the  country  of  the  lakes  behind  them.  The 
salmon  have  not  yet  lost  their  habit  of  running  up  the 
Elan  to  spawn  in  the  gravelly  streams  of  the  now 
submerged  valley,  and  they  must  be  sorely  discon- 
certed to  find  themselves  confronted  by  a  sheer 
cataract  one  hundred  and  twenty  feet  high  !  Swollen 
by  the  Elan,  which  is  fine  fishing  below  the  lakes,  the 
Wye  now  sweeps  or  rages  downward  through  a  long 
series  of  "most  inspiring  sylvan  scenes,  its  waters 
churned  into  a  thousand  moods  by  the  rugged  nature 
of  their  bed.  Above  the  mantling  woods,  that  in 
autumn  sunshine  wave  such  a  glorious  canopy  upon  the 
river's  now  wide  and  fretting  surface,  lofty  rock- 
breasted  hills,  beautifully  diversified  with  the  rich 
colouring  of  wilder  Wales — with  grey  cliff  and  emerald 
sward,  with  russet  fern  and  birchen  glade — lift  their 
summits  skyward.  The  park  lands  of  Doldowlod, 
with  their  fringing  woods,  squeeze  themselves  pictur- 
esquely along  the  river  bank,  while  Doleven,  upon  the 
same  Radnor  shore,  towers  above  all  to  a  height  of 
198 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

over  a  thousand  feet.  At  Newbridge  and  Llysdinam 
the  broken  hills  on  either  side  fall  back,  but  the  Wye 
surges  on  with  a  vigour  no  whit  abated  by  its  recent 
efforts  in  more  contracted  channels,  till  the  Ithon, 
from  the  far  solitudes  of  Radnor  forest,  and  big  with 
the  burden  of  many  tributary  brooks,  pours  in  a  broad 
volume  that  in  flood-time  fills  the  brown,  peaty  Wye 
with  the  ruddy  stain  of  a  red-sandstone  country. 
But  these  after  all  are  far  excellence  the  haunts  of  the 
salmon-fisher.  Here,  just  above,  are  the  pools  of 
Caerwnon,  and  away  down  beyond  the  railway  bridge 
which  bears  the  trains  bound  for  their  stiff  climb  up 
the  Yrfon  and  over  the  Sugar  Loaf  and  down  the 
wonderful  pitch  beyond,  into  the  vale  of  Towy  and 
South-west  Wales,  are  the  famous  salmon  catches  of 
*  Builth  rocks.'  The  long  gorge  of  Aberedw  through 
the  Epynt  range  looms  near,  and  to  see  the  Wye 
rage  through  it  in  a  big  flood  is  a  memory  to  be  treas- 
ured. And  far  beyond,  the  Black  mountains  will  be 
cutting  the  sky-line,  and  thrusting  back  the  now 
quieting  river  to  the  eastwards  and  to  the  pleasant 
pastures  of  Hereford.  It  was  hereabouts  at  Builth 
that  the  Wye  inspired  the  first  of  the  many  poets 
who  have  invoked  it,  and  that  was  a  long  time  ago,  so 
long  ago  as  the  early  fourteenth  century,  and  the 
singer  was  Dafydd  ap  Gwylim,  the  greatest  Welsh 
poet  of  all  time,  though  he  may  not  be  judged  by  an 
English  translation : 

Sweet  Wye,  with  thy  waters  as  white  as  the  snow, 
Now  dark  as  the  thunder-cloud's  banner  of  woe. 
Oh  why  should  we  wander  beyond  thy  wild  stream. 
From  the  land  of  the  harp  and  the  bard  and  his  dream  ! 

199 


CLEAR  WATERS 

The  streams  of  the  Saxons  are  languid  and  dead, 
Like  the  mist  on  the  mountain  when  summer  is  fled. 
With  thy  wild,  thronging  billows,  now  softened,  now  shrill. 
Like  the  laugh  of  fair  children  that  sport  on  the  hill. 
Now  all  glowing  with  light  and  all  snowy  with  foam. 
Like  the  maids  of  the  land  of  my  heart  and  my  home. 

Going  up  stream  there  is  yet  nearly  twenty  miles  of 
the  Wye  between  Rhayader  and  that  lonely  hollow 
beneath  Plinlimmon  where  lurks  its  birthplace.  From 
the  mountain  spur  above,  on  a  still  day  following  a 
storm,  you  can  hear  with  something  more  than  the 
ear  of  faith  the  faint  chords  of  a  wonderful  trio.  It  is 
the  infant  waters  of  the  Wye,  the  Severn,  and  the 
Rheidol,  plashing  from  their  fountain  springs.  No 
wonder  it  set  the  harps  of  the  old  bards  twanging  and 
stirred  George  Borrow  to  much  original  eloquence. 
Surely,  for  those  to  whom  rivers  are  something  more 
than  geographical  expressions,  there  is  not  a  spot  in 
all  these  islands  quite  so  significantly  suggestive.  If 
you  have  a  heart  that  can  feel,  and  a  fancy  that  can  be 
moved  by  such  things,  they  will  be  touched  here.  If 
not,  let  it  pass.  For  there  is  quite  tolerable  trouting 
in  the  Wye  when  it  gets  big  enough,  which  is  pretty 
soon,  for  the  Tarenig,  of  equal  volume  and  rising  in  the 
high  breast  of  Plinlimmon,  joins  it  three  miles  below. 
This  is  more  than  can  be  said,  I  fear,  for  the  Severn, 
for  though  equally  prolific,  the  little  sheep  town  of 
Llanidloes  holds  the  same  fixed  views  on  trout  as  the 
men  of  Rhayader  have  always  cherished  towards  the 
salmon. 

Salmon  ascend  the   Severn  in  fair  numbers  to  its 
head-waters.     But,   as   for  some  inexplicable  reasorx 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

they  will  nowhere  rise  to  a  fly,  and  are  only  taken 
in  small  numbers  by  spinning  or  the  like,  the  river 
doesn't  count  in  this  sense.  So  I  presume  it  doesn't 
much  matter  if  the  sheep  farmers  scoop  out  enough 
in  autumn  to  smoke  for  their  own  use  as  a  change  of 
winter  diet.  It  merely  lies  between  them  and  the 
licensed  net  owners  who  do  business  right  up  to 
Welshpool,  and,  I  suppose,  strictly  speaking,  between 
them  and  the  law,  which  without  any  local  rod  interest 
to  back  it  up  is,  I  should  imagine,  tolerably  slack.  In 
any  case  the  effect  of  the  tribute  levied  is,  I  dare  say, 
trifling,  and  a  good  many  people  in  the  locality  which 
breeds  the  fish  get  what  they  consider  a  table  delicacy ; 
for  there  is  no  accounting  for  taste ! 

The  Llanidloes  opinion  on  the  trout  question  used 
to  be  very  much  that  of  the  men  of  Rhayader  towards 
the  nobler  salmon,  but  has  vastly  improved  of  late. 
A  few  years  ago  they  were  incorrigible  trout-netters. 
Now  the  worst  elements  are  dying  out  or  suppressed,  and 
an  angling  association  of  a  democratic  nature  has  been 
formed,  with  rights  over  thirty  miles  of  the  upper  Severn 
and  its  tributaries — bright  mountain  streams,  all  of 
them,  threading  valleys  that  are  worth  exploring  even 
without  a  rod.  Llanidloes  is  pulling  itself  together 
in  this  respect,  and  laying  itself  out  to  catch  a  portion 
of  the  tourist  stream  that  leaves  it  in  the  lurch  and 
races  over  the  Pass  of  Talerddig  to  the  Dovey  valley  and 
the  coast  watering-places.  If  the  summer  passengers  on 
the  Cambrian  knew  Llanidloes  and  its  mountain  back 
country  as  well  as  I  do,  there  would  be  a  surprising 
boom  in  the  building  trade  of  that  Arcadian  market 
town,  whither  most  of  the  fleeces  of  the  Plinlimmon 

20I 


CLEAR  WATERS 

range  find  their  way.  With  or  without  a  rod  Llanid- 
loes may  be  commended  with  confidence  to  the 
wanderer  of  taste  and  discretion.  That  glorious  moun- 
tain country  which  stretches,  but  little  known  and  but 
little  traversed,  from  the  Dovey  to  old  PlinHmmon,  Hes 
at  his  command,  threaded  with  bright  streams  and 
sprinkled  with  tarns,  many  of  which  are  well  worth 
a  visit.  The  Severn  (the  Hafren)  and  its  twin  sister, 
the  Clwedog,  run  simultaneously  out  of  their  moun- 
tain gorges  at  Llanidloes,  where,  united  as  the  Severn, 
they  sweep  through  the  meadows  in  rippHng,  sinuous 
course  towards  Moat  Lane  and  Newtown.  Only  per- 
sistent poaching  in  the  past  has  prevented  this  portion 
of  the  Severn  from  providing  excellent  trout-fishing. 
The  citizens  have  now  sworn  by  aU  their  gods  that  they 
will  exterminate  the  poisonous  thing  in  the  interests  of 
their  own  sport  and  that  of  their  potential  visitors. 

But  to  return  to  the  Wye,  a  mere  step  indeed  from 
here.  Having  lost  the  Elan  at  Rhayader  and  the 
Marteg,  which  come  rushing  in  two  miles  above  from 
the  northerly  vales  of  St.  Harmon  and  Pant-y-dwr 
{the  hollow  of  the  waters),  the  river  shrinks  to  the 
dimensions  of  a  handy,  easily  covered  trout  stream  of 
a  most  alluring  type.  The  narrow  bosky  glens,  over- 
hung by  heights  through  which  it  churns  in  rocky 
troughs  to  Rhayader,  give  gradual  place  to  a  smooth, 
narrow  vale  of  meadowy  floor,  from  which  the  green, 
moorish  steeps  on  either  side  rise  more  temperately 
and  roll  away  into  silence.  The  river,  in  much  gentler 
mood,  curves  from  edge  to  edge,  swishing  in  bright, 
gravelly  runs  from  one  dark  corner  pool  to  another. 
Homesteads  trail  along  it,  each  with  their  little  grove 
202 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

of  oak,  ash,  or  sycamore,  their  meadows  in  the  vale,  their 
unfenced  sheep-walks  in  the  wild  above.  The  Aberyst- 
with  road,  too,  clings  to  the  valley,  even  to  its  water- 
shed fifteen  miles  away,  where  on  a  fine  grade  it  climbs 
the  high,  wild  pass  of  Steddfa-Curig  on  Plinlimmon's 
foot.  A  narrow,  little-used,  but  well-laid  and  beautiful 
road  was  this  to  travel  on  but  a  dozen  years  ago.  Now, 
however,  the  seaward-bound  motorist  has  made  it  his 
own,  half-ruined  its  surface,  and  turned  the  once  quiet 
and  rarely  travelled  byway  up  an  entrancing  valley 
into  a  species  of  uproarious  race-track  throughout  the 
summer  months.  One  may  well  wonder  what  glimmer- 
ing of  consciousness  abides  with  these  people  of  the 
infinite  charm  of  this  uppermost  valley  of  the  Wye 
that  they  are  tearing  through  at  twenty-five  or  thirty 
miles  an  hour,  for  the  even  grade  tempts  them.  Let 
us  forget  them,  however.  It  is  not  always  July  and 
August,  thank  heaven  !  And  even  August  has  not  yet 
discovered  anything  south  of  Plinlimmon,  for  which  we 
may  render  further  thanks. 

By  the  church  of  St.  Curig,  the  patron  saint  of  the 
vale  at  the  hamlet  of  Llangurig,  ten  miles  up  from 
Rhayader,  there  is  an  excellent  fishing-inn  of  old  and 
good  repute,  the  Black  Lion.  The  Wye  runs  within 
a  bow-shot  of  the  door,  and  the  privilege  of  fishing  for 
some  miles  up  and  down  is  attached  to  it.  One  of 
those  fine,  old,  Welsh  landladies,  and  there  are  none 
better,  catered  here  for  a  generation  of  anglers,  and 
was  a  power  not  only  in  her  own  house  but  in  the 
valley.  She  is  dead  now,  but  the  hostelry  is  still  carried 
on.  Llangurig  is  a  veritable  little  oasis  in  a  fine,  wild 
country,  though  but  five  miles  by  a  good  road  from 

203 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Llanidloes,  whose  remaining  poachers  do  not,  I  think, 
regard  the  Wye  as  within  their  legitimate  sphere. 
Both  to  the  north  and  south  the  moors  spring  sharply 
up  from  the  vale  and  spread  away  interminably.  I 
have  more  than  once  made  brief  halts  for  a  day  or  so 
at  the  Black  Lion  when  exploring  the  country,  and 
have  had  a  vow  of  something  much  more  lasting 
registered  this  many  a  long  year.  Alas,  the  brief  span 
of  an  angler's  life  is  strewn  with  cruel  disappointments. 
The  vow  was  accomplished  this  very  past  season,  but  in 
an  absolutely  hopeless  drought,  which  reduced  the  river 
to  a  positively  lower  condition  than  even  in  the  un- 
forgettable 191 1.  It  is  not  here  a  torrential,  rocky 
river,  with  deep,  swirling  holes,  which  even  in  a  drought 
may  tempt  you  to  action,  but  a  rippling,  shingly  stream, 
beautiful  to  fish  in  normal  times,  but  when  shrivelled  up 
offering  scarcely  a  spot  where  you  could  hopefully  cast 
a  fly.  I  saw  plenty  of  fish  in  the  water,  however,  and 
some  very  good  ones  too,  and  it  did  not  need  a  fort- 
night's sojourn  on  its  banks  and  many  chats  with  local 
anglers  to  realise  that  it  carried  a  good  stock,  and 
to  make  one  long  to  be  there  in  May  or  even  a  wet 
August.  Fortunately  there  are  attractions  other  than 
fishing  in  this  delightful  spot,  which  stands,  moreover, 
a  thousand  feet  above  sea-level.  An  easier  and  more 
open  stream  to  fish  than  this  upper  ten  miles  of  the 
Wye  I  never  saw.  For  the  encouragement  of  youth  in 
the  noble  art  of  fly  fishing  I  do  not  know  a  better. 

Till    quite    recently    strange    superstitions    clung 

tenaciously  to  these  head-waters  of  the  Wye.     It  was 

a  cul-de-sac.     The  Aberystwith  road  ceased  with  the 

collapse  of  coaching  to  be  even  the  modest  artery  it 

204 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

had  hitherto  been,  and  subsided  into  a  mere  local  road 
for  the  thin  line  of  scattered  homesteads  on  its  trail, 
east  of  the  Steddfa  pass.  A  dozen  years  ago  it  had 
still  here  and  there  a  gate  across  it !  Motors,  however, 
have  changed  all  that,  though  they  have  spoiled  the 
road  bed.  Otherwise  they  have  done  nothing  more 
than  raise  dust  and  wake  the  echoes  of  the  hills  with 
desecrating  and  excrutiatingly  inharmonious  sounds. 
After  all,  you  can't  do  much  towards  exploiting  a 
country  in  thirty-five  minutes  within  the  limits  of  a 
twenty-foot  road,  and  that  is  all  the  motor  folk  have  to 
do  with  this  wild  region. 

A  faith  in  conjurers,  sorcerers,  and  charmers,  all 
different  professions,  please  to  note,  is  not  even  yet 
quite  extinct.  Three  or  four  years  ago  the  last  of  a 
race  of  Cwtserwr  (possessors  of  the  evil  eye)  was  held 
in  genuine  awe  by  some,  at  least,  of  the  farmers,  and 
his  performances  were  seriously  recounted  in  the 
vernacular  by  one  of  them  to  a  Welsh  friend  and 
myself  over  the  cheerful  glass  and  a  bright  fire  in  the 
parlour  of  the  Black  Lion  at  Llangurig.  Something 
inspiring  is  now  required  to  extract  such  confessions 
from  the  Welsh  peasant,  who  is  a  bit  shame- 
faced about  his  lingering  faith  in  the  supernatural. 
The  Canzoyll  corph  (corpse  candle)  flickered  realisti- 
cally for  only  the  last  generation.  The  Cyhywraeth — 
a  grisly  female  who,  with  uplifted  bony  arms  and 
the  horrors  of  the  grave  upon  her  person,  appeared 
to  the  trembling  rustic  as  the  herald  of  impending 
woe — might  be  looked  for  at  any  time,  and  the  howl 
of  the  Czon  Annzon  (the  dogs  of  the  sky),  who  hunt 
departing  souls  across  the  midnight  heavens,  was  still 

205 


CLEAR  WATERS 

heard  by  the  faithful  amid  these  hills  as  clearly  as  in 
the  plains  of  Cardiganshire,  that  most  aloof  and  most 
Welsh  of  all  Welsh  counties.  Amid  the  hoot  of  the 
motors  you  may  still  encounter  the  farmers  on  their 
hardy  ponies  jogging  in  little  companies  to  market, 
and  often,  too,  a  farmer's  wife  ambling  down  to 
Rhayader,  sometimes  in  peasant  dress,  sometimes 
quite  stylishly  attired,  but  always  basket  on  arm,  and 
not  a  bit  ashamed  of  it,  though  her  husband  may  own 
two  thousand  sheep  upon  the  hills  above. 

The  ancient  tongue  is  dying  hardly  but  surely  on 
the  head-waters  of  the  Wye.  Rhayader  and,  indeed, 
the  whole  of  Radnorshire  lost  it  completely  from  fifty 
to  a  hundred  years  ago.  Llangurig  is  just  in  Mont- 
gomeryshire, and  all  around  and  above  it  the  old  and 
the  middle-aged  still  cling  to  the  vernacular.  But 
*  the  children,  alas,'  said  an  old  farmer  to  me,  *  play 
in  Saesoneg,'  and  when  the  children  begin  to  play  in 
English  it  is  the  beginning  of  the  end.  But  this  is  a 
corner  with  its  back  to  a  barren  mountain  and  its  face 
to  an  English-speaking  world,  and  the  situation  is 
not  quite  typical  of  matters  lingual.  That  there  is  no 
generic  name  for  this  widespreading  and  clearly  defined 
mountain  wilderness  seems  a  scandalous  oversight  on 
the  part  of  the  ancients,  though  no  doubt  a  mere 
mischance,  infinitely  regrettable,  and  a  constant  incon- 
venience both  in  print  and  converse.  Like  a  long 
half-moon  it  completely  shuts  out  the  large  seaboard 
county  of  Cardigan  from  the  interior.  The  *  Cardy  ' 
simply  cannot  get  out  except  at  the  two  extremes  of 
his  long  shire,  and  is,  for  that  and  one  or  two  other 
reasons,  a  distinct  type  of  Welshman  all  to  himself. 
206 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

These  mountains  vitally  influenced  racial  distribution 
in  ancient  Wales.  They  were  a  leading  military  factor 
in  the  domestic  Welsh  wars  and  the  Anglo-Welsh 
wars  and  the  earlier  Irish  invasions  for  hundreds  of 
years.  Their  summits,  steeps,  and  valleys  bear  fre- 
quent testimony  by  their  names  to  the  woes,  the 
triumphs,  the  anguish,  and  the  slaughter  of  centuries 
of  strife.  You  could  drop  Dartmoor  and  Exmoor 
together  into  their  wild,  uplifted  waste.  But  they 
have  no  collective  designation.  The  average  English- 
man never  heard  of  them,  and  you  can't  explain  their 
situation  by  county  reference,  as  they  cover  bits  of 
five,  and  these  five,  moreover,  counties  not  generally 
well  defined  in  the  public  mind.  The  before-men- 
tioned scorcher  to  Aberystwith  may  sometimes  be 
aware  that  he  is  passing  over  the  toe  of  Plinlimmon,  for 
Plinlimmon  is  a  well  identified  mountain,  but  that  is 
the  limit  of  his  understanding.  For  he  doesn't  in  the 
least  know  whither  the  green  and  tawny  steeps  he  is 
brushing  with  his  left  shoulder  trend,  or  what  they 
signify,  and,  as  I  said  before,  they  have  no  name.  In 
the  old  fighting  days  they  acquired  one  of  necessity, 
for  Giraldus  tells  us  the  English  called  them  the 
Moruge,  and  the  Welsh  the  mountains  of  Elenydd, 
and  there  was  a  fearful  lot  of  blood-letting  within 
them  and  around  their  skirts.  However  this  may  be, 
about  five  hundred  cars  and  motor  cycles  per  diem 
race  through  this  valley  in  the  summer  holidays,  but  I 
have  never  seen  one  slow  down  except  of  necessity, 
nor  detected  the  faintest  sign  of  interest  in  the  un- 
common region  they  are  screaming  through.  Within 
sound  of  their  profane  and  ceaseless  discords  you  may 

207 


CLEAR  WATERS 

hide  yourself  in  a  mountain-land  from  which  even  the 
guide-book  flinches. 

Deep  in  its  heart,  and  forming  early  in  its  course  some 
small  lakes,  '  pegged,'  i.e.  staked,  by  a  fishing  club  from 
Cardiganshire,  and  I  think  successfully  preserved, 
rises  what  the  delightful  twelfth-century  cleric  and 
writer  above  quoted  justly  calls  the  '  noble  river  Teifi.' 
Breaking  from  the  hills  it  streams  down  into  the  low 
country  of  Cardigan  by  the  treasured  remnants  of  the 
once  great  abbey  of  Ystrydfflur  or  Strata  Florida, 
where,  far  removed  and,  one  might  venture  to  think, 
secure  for  all  time  from  the  world's  throb,  lies  the  dust 
of  so  many  of  the  ancient  princes  of  South  Wales. 

Now  the  Teifi  is  a  wonderful  fine  trout  stream, 
and  withal  no  bad  salmon  river,  running  a  course  of 
fifty  miles  or  so,  by  Tregaron,  Lampeter,  and  Newcastle- 
Emlyn  to  the  sea  at  Cardigan,  and  that  remote,  un- 
known, but  gloriously  rugged  coast  which  was  the 
scene  of  Allen  Raine's  Welsh  novels,  and  the  native 
soil  of  the  authoress,  a  country  lawyer's  daughter. 
She  could  translate  Welsh  peasant  life  into  the  English 
tongue  better,  at  any  rate,  than  any  one  else  who  has 
ever  attempted  that  almost  impossible  task,  and  had 
the  distinction,  I  believe,  of  being,  as  regards  circula- 
tion, the  most  popular  fiction  writer  of  her  quite 
recent  day. 

What  helps  to  make  the  Teifi  probably  the  best 
trouting  river  in  Wales  is  the  great  flat  bog  of  Tregaron 
in  the  lower  country,  some  six  miles  in  length,  along  the 
edge  of  which  it  flows.  This  is  the  only  instance  of  a 
real  Irish  '  red  bog '  in  the  low  country  of  either 
England  or  Wales.  It  is  like  a  bit  of  the  bog  of  Allan 
208 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

transported  across  the  channel,  and  here  also,  as  on 
the  flat  Irish  bogs,  grouse  breed  and  are  shot  upon 
it.  It  plays  the  part  of  a  huge  sponge,  in  holding  up 
the  storm  and  flood  water,  so  that  a  freshet  on  the 
Teifi,  instead  of  running  off  in  twenty-four  hours 
with  all  its  fish  food  as  in  other  similar  rivers  nowadays, 
subsides  gradually  and  keeps  the  fish  astir  and  the 
angler  active  for  a  much  longer  period  after  the 
fashion  common  to  most  streams  in  the  days  before 
sub-soil  drainage  was  much  in  vogue.  This  gradual 
subsiding  of  flood  water  must  obviously  economise 
the  food  supply,  and  conduce  to  a  larger  stock  of  fish. 
At  any  rate  the  Teifi  contains  a  very  ample  one. 
Most  of  its  middle  and  lower  waters  are  well  preserved ; 
even  in  its  upper  and  more  or  less  open  ones  baskets  of 
twelve  pounds  are  expected  and  achieved  in  spring 
fishing  with  ordinary  skill.  I  have  had  fair  sport  in  it 
myself  at  the  back  end,  but  it  is  at  its  best  in  April. 

Now  there  is  a  single  line  of  railroad  running  north 
and  south  through  Cardiganshire.  It  is,  or  rather  was, 
entitled  the  Manchester  and  Milford,  or  the  M  and  M, 
perhaps  for  the  reason  that  it  had  not  the  remotest 
connection  with  either  of  those  two  industrial  centres, 
but  was  mainly  devoted  to  the  conveyance  back  and 
forth  by  an  infrequent  service  of  farmers  and  squires, 
together  with  the  agricultural  produce  that  supported 
them  both — for  millionaires  do  not  buy  estates  in 
Cardiganshire.  I  use  the  past  tense,  for  I  believe  the 
Great  Western  have  now  acquired  it.  I  have  often 
travelled  by  this  line  in  former  days,  and  in  the  mush- 
room season  it  was  commonly  said  that  the  train  would 
always  pull  up  if  a  well-sprinkled  pasture  field  excited 
o  209 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  passengers  to  call  a  halt.  The  Teifi  runs  along 
beside  it,  and  there  is  a  noted  salmon  pool  just  beneath 
one  of  the  small  way-stations,  the  custodian  of  which 
in  my  time  was  an  enthusiastic  angler,  and  had  the  free 
run  of  it  from  the  squire.  And,  I  might  add,  that  the 
Teifi  owners  all  the  way  down  were  the  most  hospitable 
in  this  respect  of  any  I  have  ever  encountered.  The 
station-master  was  the  sole  official  here,  and  if  he  was 
in  a  salmon  when  the  train  arrived,  which  with  the 
water  in  good  order  sometimes  happened,  it  was 
awkward,  or  would  have  been  if  the  passengers  who 
had  grown  up  as  it  were  with  the  railroad,  and  indeed, 
as  already  hinted,  encouraged  its  informalities,  had 
regarded  the  matter  as  unusual,  or  done  anything  but 
turn  out  in  a  body  to  see  the  fish  gaffed. 

Just  inside  the  edge  of  the  high  moors  above  Tre- 
garon is  a  large  tarn  covering  several  acres,  named  Llyn 
Berviyn.  It  contains  a  fair  stock  of  good  trout,  but 
of  such  reticent  habit  that  they  are  expected  to  take 
the  fly  about  one  day  only  in  the  month.  Then  I 
believe  the  labour  of  getting  there  earns  its  due  reward 
and  more.  One  day  late  in  July,  a  young  Cardigan- 
shire farmer  of  my  acquaintance  offered  to  drive  me  up 
there,  as  he  had  a  brace  of  young  pointers  he  wanted 
to  handle  a  bit  before  the  approaching  grouse-shooting 
opened.  The  chances  were  consequently  thirty  to 
one  against  me,  counting  Sundays,  but  I  took  the  odds 
unhesitatingly.  So  we  toiled  up  the  five  miles  of 
rough  road  from  Tregaron,  almost  the  only  track  that 
actually  crosses  these  '  mountains  of  Elenydd '  into 
Brecon  and  Radnor.  Our  vehicle  was  a  dog-cart  and 
our  steed,  happily  for  us,  a  faithful  family  friend 
210 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

nearly  as  old  as  its  driver.  When  we  got  on  to  the 
moors,  the  lake  lay  glistening  some  half  mile  from  the 
road,  amid  the  normal  boggy  verdure  that  I  have  said 
clothes  all  these  mountains  but  their  steeps  and  rockier 
summits  with  a  ragged  mantle,  which  at  the  best  makes 
laborious  going  and  at  the  worst  is  treacherous.  What 
my  friend  did  not  know  about  its  qualities,  however, 
was  not  worth  knowing.  Still  it  had  been  an  excep- 
tionally dry  summer,  and  relying  upon  that  fact  in  a 
rash  moment  he  made  up  his  mind  to  risk  it,  and  make 
for  the  lake  instead  of  hitching  his  horse  to  the  trap 
by  the  open  road-side.  It  was  a  fatal  resolve.  We 
had  not  gone  a  hundred  yards  when  the  horse,  who 
obviously  had  his  doubts,  suddenly  broke  the  crust  and 
went  straight  down  without  any  warning,  till  there 
was  not  much  more  than  his  back  and  head  above 
ground.  Luckily,  having  I  believe  twenty-five  years 
of  experience  behind  him,  he  behaved  like  an  angel. 
Any  ordinary  beast  would  have  struggled  till  he  went 
out  of  sight.  As  it  was,  after  we  had  with  great  diffi- 
culty got  the  shafts  of  the  cart,  which  had  also  mired 
badly,  off  his  back,  he  eventually  and  most  skilfully 
dragged  himself  out,  and  covered  with  brown  bog 
slime  looked  his  master  reproachfully  in  the  face.  It 
was  obviously  not  the  right  day  of  the  month  for  my 
undertaking.  There  was  a  beautiful  breeze,  and  Llyn 
Berwyn  is  one  of  the  nicest  lakes  I  ever  fished  in.  It 
is  shallow,  with  a  firm,  gently  sloping  sandy  bottom. 
You  could  wade  anywhere  for  quite  a  long  way  out  and 
with  confidence.  But  I  only  had  one  rise,  and  that 
from  a  good  fish — as  indeed  they  all  are  here,  I  under- 
stand— ^just  after  lunch,  and  I  was  so  startled  that  if  he 

211 


CLEAR  WATERS 

had  fastened,  I  feel  sure  the  gut  would  have  snapped 
as  he  turned. 

Close  to  the  source  of  the  Teifi  rises  another  noble 
river,  the  Towy,  not  so  good  for  trout  or  salmon  as  the 
other,  but  renowned  lower  down  for  its  sewin.  Plung- 
ing noisily  through  the  troughs  of  the  wild,  dark  brown 
in  storm  and  clear  amber  in  dry  weather,  burrowing 
continually  in  deep  rock-walled  trenches  it  has  carved 
for  itself  in  the  course  of  ages,  it  foams  along  to  meet 
the  Doithea  beneath  the  crags  and  woodlands  of 
Ystradffyn  on  the  verge  of  civilisation.  Up  above 
this  in  the  moorland  wilds  it  is  fuU  of  small  trout. 
Small  as  they  are  I  have  often  made  them  an  excuse 
for  crossing  over  from  Llanwrtyd  wells  in  the  valley 
of  the  Yrfon,  and  abandoning  the  social  and  other 
attractions  of  the  old  Dolcoed  hotel  merely  to  spend 
but  a  brief  day  among  the  wild  sheep-walks  of  Nant- 
Stallwyn.  It  is  a  long  job,  being  a  full  ten  miles,  and 
the  last  part  of  it  virtually  unnegotiable  for  any  wheels 
but  those  of  a  hill  farmer  who  has  a  nag  especially 
entered  to  the  business.  But  when  you  had  achieved 
it  you  could  kill  as  many  small  trout  as  you  pleased. 
And  on  the  way  one  passed  Abergwessin  and  its  pic- 
turesque inn,  where  the  angler  may  stop  and  enjoy 
quite  excellent  trouting  in  the  torrential  head-waters 
of  the  Yrfon,  amid  scenes  that  for  beauty  are  renowned 
throughout  South  Wales.  The  memories  of  a  July 
day  among  these  exquisite  cascades  and  a  basket  of 
most  sizeable  fish  therefrom  extracted  often  comes 
back  to  me. 

Lower  down  the  Towy,  just  before  it  leaves  the 
wilds,  there  dwelt  on  its  banks  a  lady  of  remarkable 

212 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

character.     She  was    a  spinster  even  then  advanced 
in  years,  the  daughter  of  a  departed  sheep  farmer,  and 
inheritor  and  mistress  of  all  his  flocks.     She  ruled  her 
many  shepherds  with  the  firmest  of  hands,  and  no 
dealer  I  believe  in  Llandovery  or  any  other  market  was 
ever  known  to  get  the  better  of  her.     The  graces  of  life 
had  no  great  part  in  her  scheme  of  it.     She  had  no  use 
for  frills  of  any  sort.     Warm  as  she  was  in  this  world's 
goods,  she  apparently  wasted  nothing  in  superfluities 
either  within  or  without  doors.     Her  demeanour  sug- 
gested the  Cheviots  or  the  Lammermuirs  rather  than 
the  demonstrative  courtesy  of  the  South  Welsh  hill- 
folk.     She  was  tremendously  proud,  I  think,  in  a  grim, 
silent  way  of  her  unique  reputation.     Welsh  was  her 
natural  tongue,  as  it  is  of  every  one  in  the  heart  and 
west  of  these  mountains,  and  I  don't  think  she  had 
very    much    English.     Her    front    yard    was    always 
seething  with  collies  of  the  most  truculent  and  menac- 
ing kind,  and  on  my  first  call  I  felt  thankful  to  be  on 
the  back  of  a  horse.     I  have  been  there  for  tea  on 
one  occasion,  a  liberty  I  should  never  have  ventured 
but  with  a  local  companion  who  had  the  honour  of 
her  acquaintance — an  honour,  I  must  say,  she  acknow- 
ledged with  such  economy  of  words  that  if  I  hadn't 
known  they  were  old  neighbours,  as  things  count  here, 
and  on  good  terms,  I  should  have  opined  that  there 
was  some  hereditary  feud  smouldering.     We  had  tea 
on  the  kitchen  table  while  she  busied  herself  about 
things  unconnected  with  us  and  that  most  bachelor 
ladies  with  five  thousand  sheep  would  have  deputed 
to  an  understudy.      But  perhaps  it  was  these  very 
qualities  that  made  her  great  and  even  feared  among 

213 


CLEAR  WATERS 

profit-seeking  middlemen  all  down  the  vale  of 
Towy. 

Locked  up  in  the  chambers  of  the  London  County 
Council  are  the  engineer's  plans  of  a  mighty  scheme 
for  tunnelling  the  mountain  watershed,  and  carrying 
the  waters  of  the  Towy  to  mingle  with  those  of  the 
Yrfon,  and  turn  the  beautiful  lower  valley  of  the  Wye 
tributary  into  a  vast  lake  for  the  supply  of  London. 
I  have  seen  these  plans  made  many  years  ago,  for  a 
landowner  nearly  concerned  was  a  friend  of  mine, 
and  showed  me  a  draft  of  them.  There  was  no  secret 
about  the  survey  or  the  scheme.  It  still  remains 
one  of  the  future  alternatives  for  London.  The 
scenery  of  the  Towy  valley  for  the  whole  long  way 
from  the  high  moors  to  Llandovery,  and  the  charm 
of  the  clear  tempestuous  river  itself  in  its  green, 
woody,  and  mountain-bordered  vale,  abide  always 
in  the  memory  of  those  of  us  who  have  known  it. 
Swollen  at  Twm-Shon-Catti  by  the  Doithea,  it  is 
quite  a  lusty  river  that  a  few  miles  lower  down  frets 
amid  almost  ceaseless  avenues  of  verdure  through  the 
widespreading  parks  and  pastures  of  Neuadd-fawr. 
'  Heavens !  what  a  river,'  would  cry  any  angler  who 
caught  a  glimpse  of  it  from  any  point.  I  speak  under 
correction  as  to  the  immediate  present.  But  the  un- 
restrained fish  raider  has  made  a  burning  example  here 
of  what  even  a  sparse  Welsh  community  can  do  when 
it  sets  its  mind  to  it  in  the  way  of  cleaning  out  a  river 
that  has  never  been  protected,  both  of  its  stock  of  trout 
and  its  annual  run  of  sewin. 

Below  Llandovery  the  Towy  utterly  changes  both  in 
habit  and  circumstances.  All  down  its  green  historic 
214 


ELAN  LAKES— WILD  SOUTH  WALES 

vale  to  its  tidal  waters  above  Carmarthen  we  have  a 
broad  stream  swishing  amid  wide  breadths  of  shingle, 
or  rolling  deep  and  sullen  between  meadowy  banks ; 
a  well-preserved  trout  and  sewin  river  all  the  way, 
picking  up  en  route  the  winsome  stream  of  the  Cothi, 
till  the  push  of  the  tide  begins  to  be  felt,  and  the 
salmon-netters  with  their  coracles  take  sole  possession 
of  the  waters. 


215 


CLEAR  WATERS 


VII 

THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

SOME  of  the  best  rivers  in  Devonshire  have  been 
greatly  damaged  of  recent  years  by  the 
increase  of  salmon,  which  is  a  vast  pity.  For 
trout  give  more  continuous  sport  to  a  great  many  more 
people,  and  if  they  do  not  furnish  the  fevered  quarter 
and  half  hours  provided  by  the  king  of  fishes,  there  is 
more  varied  interest  as  well  as  more  science  in  the 
pursuit  of  them.  That  beautiful  stream  the  Torridge, 
now,  I  believe,  an  excellent  salmon  river,  is  a  case  in 
point.  Its  neighbour  the  Taw  has  fallen  away  de- 
plorably and  is  hardly  worth  fishing,  so  I  am  told, 
below  Eggesford.  Of  the  Exe  at  least  as  bad  things 
are  said.  One  wonders  whether  they  wiU  make,  as  I 
venture  to  think,  the  same  mistake  with  the  Tamar, 
and  destroy  probably  the  best  as  well  as  the  largest 
trouting  river  in  the  county.  I  have  fished  a  great 
many  of  the  Devon  streams  both  in  boyhood,  youth, 
and  middle-age,  and  have  a  nodding  acquaintance 
with,  I  think,  almost  all  of  them,  which,  I  admit,  is 
making  a  rather  bold  claim.  For  scenic  distinction 
I  take  my  hat  off  to  the  Dart  as  the  queen  of  Devon 
rivers,  a  sufficiently  proud  position.  But  do  not  let 
216 


THE  DEVONSHIRE   AVON 

Devonians  of  their  own  complacency,  which  in  this 
particular  is  immense,  run  away  with  the  notion  that 
their  streams  are  as  beautiful  as  those  of  Wales,  because 
they  are  not  by  a  long  way,  though  they  in  their  turn 
incomparably  excel  in  beauty  those  of  any  other 
English  rivers  south  of  Derbyshire.  And  the  first  of 
these  invidious  comparisons  is  made,  at  any  rate, 
honestly  and  impartially,  Heaven  knows,  for  I  was 
*  bred  a  fisherman,'  as  the  Ancients  have  it,  in  the 
western  county,  and  that  means — well,  a  good  many 
people  know  what  it  does  mean,  while  the  others 
wouldn't  understand,  and  elaboration  would  be  futile. 
When  on  rare  occasions  I  tread  the  banks  of  a  Devon- 
shire stream  to-day,  with  those  subtle  odours  and 
accessories  which  belong  to  them  alone,  I  can  very 
nearly  cheat  myself  into  the  belief  that  life  lies  before 
me,  instead  of  mainly  behind. 

As  a  mere  pious  opinion,  with  the  exception  per- 
haps of  the  much  preserved  Tamar,  and  subject  to 
the  correction  of  any  widely  experienced  native,  I 
would  give  preference,  as  a  trout  stream  pure  and 
simple,  to  a  river  scarcely  known  by  name  outside  the 
county.  Something  of  its  obscurity  is  possibly  due 
to  the  very  fact  of  its  name,  which,  for  reasons  obvious 
to  the  most  elementary  etymologist,  is  shared  by  so 
many  notable  rivers  in  the  three  kingdoms.  I  have 
never  yet  met  any  outsider  who  was  even  aware  that 
there  was  an  Avon  in  Devonshire.  But  there  is — and 
a  very  bewitching  Avon  too,  the  very  antithesis  of 
those  placid,  silent,  and  rather  turgid  haunts  of  pike 
and  roach  that  fame  has  chiefly  illumined.  Of  the 
rivers  that  flow  out  of  Dartmoor  the  Tavy  may  boast 

217 


CLEAR  WATERS 

of  her  peal,  the  Dart  of  her  scenic  pre-eminence  and 
her  fair  share  of  sea-going  fish,  but  the  Avon  in  her 
lower  half  may  fairly,  I  think,  take  precedence  of  either 
for  the  quaUty  of  her  trout ;  and  that  is  what  chiefly 
concerns  us  in  these  pages.  My  own  angling  experi- 
ences of  the  Dart  are  of  such  ancient  date  as  to  be 
worth  nothing  in  the  matter  of  comparison.  But  an 
old  local  friend  who  has  fished  both  rivers  almost 
from  his  cradle  has  showed  me  his  fishing  journals 
extending  over  many  years  by  way  of  rubbing  in  the 
contrast  which,  in  these  pages,  at  any  rate,  is  con- 
spicuous. The  Dart  in  its  upper  reaches  has  long 
miles  of  moorland  waters  which  provide  entertainment 
for  many  visitors  in  the  way  of  small  fish,  as  fish  are 
judged  even  by  the  Devonshire  standard,  which  is 
another  business.  But  in  its  wider  and  lower  reaches 
below  Holne,  in  my  friend's  records,  which  have  much 
significance,  it  does  not  come  near  the  Avon.  Nor 
are  the  Earne  and  the  Teign,  which  also  run  south  out 
of  Dartmoor,  nor  yet  again  the  Okement,  which  runs 
north,  quite  in  the  same  class. 

But  then  the  Avon  is  very  short,  the  portion  of  it, 
that  is  to  say,  to  which  these  eulogies  are  applicable. 
It  rises,  to  be  sure,  far  within  the  moor  behind  South 
Brent,  and  in  its  pilgrimage  out  of  the  wild  has  a 
right  tempestuous  journey,  deep  channelled  in  woody 
gorges,  and  leaping  betimes  in  high  white  cataracts 
that  cannot  even  be  seen  without  effort  for  the  tangled 
foliage  that  meets  above  them.  Running  pictur- 
esquely down  past  the  rectory  and  church  of  Brent, 
diving  under  stone  bridges,  and  skirting  the  village, 
the  little  river  tumbles  through  open  meadows  for  a 
218 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

mile,  and  for  yet  another  frets  again  in  a  contracted 
and  bosky  trough.  Then  all  at  once,  within  the  space 
of  half  a  mile,  it  becomes  to  my  thinking  one  of  the 
best  bits  of  water  in  Devonshire.  On  the  moor  the 
Avon  is  prolific  of  fingerlings,  and  practically  nothing 
else.  In  the  tangled  hollows  below  the  fish  are  a 
little  better,  but  hardly  worth  the  arduous  struggles 
necessary  to  their  ensnaring.  In  the  meadows  below 
Brent,  the  sportsmen  of  the  latter  being  free  of  this 
much  of  the  water,  flog  it  pretty  hard,  while  through 
the  gorge  below,  the  force  of  the  current — at  least  we 
always  thought  so — was  against  it  as  a  holt  for  fish. 

It  is  at  Avonwick,  just  below  this,  that  the  river 
comes  into  its  own  as  a  trouting  stream,  and  thence  it 
is  but  a  dozen  or  so  miles  to  the  little  estuary  where 
it  joins  the  sea  beyond  Loddiswell.  Nearly  all  of  its 
wayward,  sparkling  journey  thither  lies  through  as 
snug  a  valley  as  there  is  in  Devon.  There  are  many 
valleys  in  the  county  more  beautiful,  to  be  sure,  but 
this  one  is  absolutely  and  completely  typical.  Even 
the  single  track  railroad  which  foUows  it  to  Kings- 
bridge  has  done  little  aesthetic  damage.  When  I  first 
knew  the  valley  in  my  college  days,  and  indeed  for  long 
afterwards,  there  was  nothing  of  this.  If  bound  for  the 
Kingsbridge  country  you  joined  the  coach  or  your 
friend's  trap  at  Kingsbridge  Road  station,  now  re- 
christened  Ugborough,  after  the  tor  at  whose  foot  it 
lies. 

Brent,  on  the  main  line  of  the  Great  Western,  is  the 
starting-point  of  the  Avon  valley  branch  line.  It  lies 
between  Plymouth  and  Totnes,  and  summer  refugees 
from  both  those  pleasant  enervating  places  repair  to 

219 


CLEAR  WATERS 

its  limited  accommodation  as  to  a  hill-station  for  the 
moorland  air.  For  among  the  indigenous  folk  of 
South  Devon,  Brent,  it  should  be  said,  ranks  as  a  highly- 
bracing  sanatorium.  I  would  not  give  a  fig  myself 
for  the  air  of  southern  Dartmoor.  The  memory  of 
four  summer  months  spent  there  in  the  late  nineties 
is  always,  despite  climatic  drawbacks,  a  delightful  one. 
But  time  has  more  than  half  obscured  the  awful  and 
persistent  sense  of  lethargy,  to  use  a  quite  inadequate 
term,  that  possessed  me  all  day  long  and  in  all  weathers 
in  that,  to  me,  debilitating  atmosphere.  I  had 
scarcely  known  till  then  what  it  meant  to  be  tired  in 
any  unpleasant  sense  from  mere  physical  effort,  and  to 
fish  the  Avon  thoroughly  every  scrap  of  vitality  you 
possess  is  required,  particularly  if  the  stream  is  fairly 
full.  Nothing  but  the  sternest  sense  of  duty,  or  rather 
an  absolute  refusal  to  confess  myself  a  weakling,  sup- 
ported me  through  the  long  days  of  labouring  up  that 
rugged  river  bed  beneath  the  trees.  The  nights  up  at 
Brent  brought  no  relief,  and  I  used  to  get  up  in  the 
morning  feeling  as  if  I  had  never  been  to  bed.  I  got 
quite  alarmed  after  a  time  and  felt  convinced  that  old 
age,  like  a  thief  in  the  night,  had  struck  me  prematurely, 
or  that  I  was  on  the  verge  of  some  mysterious  nervous 
collapse,  so  unnatural  did  aU  this  seem  to  an  open-air 
life  on  the  slopes  of  Dartmoor  !  A  necessary  run  up 
to  London  provided  the  opportunity,  and  I  surrep- 
titiously sought  the  opinion  of  Sir  Omicron  Pie  on 
my  sad  case.  I  have  often  laughed  over  that  inter- 
view, and  it  is  worth  recalling  : — 

*  Well,  I  can't  find  anything  the  matter  with  you,' 
said  the  great  man,  *  but  where  have  you  been  staying  ? ' 
220 


THE  DEVONSHIRE   AVON 

I  told  him  I  was  at  Brent,  and  it  was  regarded  as  a 
bracing  place.  *  Brent !  '  he  almost  shouted,  when  I 
told  him,  *  Brent !  Why,  as  you  aren't  a  native, 
I  'm  only  surprised  you  are  as  well  as  you  are.  Now 
I  will  tell  you  something.  It 's  very  strange  that  you 
should  have  come  to  me.  For  I  went  down  with 
my  wife  last  year  for  a  month's  holiday  to  that  very 
place,  and  I  give  you  my  word,  upon  the  third  day  I 
could  hardly  walk  upstairs,  and  we  left  upon  the  fourth.' 
I  felt  much  better  when  I  came  out,  of  course,  and  as 
the  fishing  was  about  over  the  protracted  lassitude 
lost  most  of  its  significance,  and  dropped  even  out  of 
memory  shooting  partridges  in  Suffolk  that  September, 
though  it  was  the  hottest  within  living  memory. 

History  repeats  itself.  My  mild  alarms  at  this 
time  recalled  a  rather  similar  experience  to  my  father's 
memory.  When  a  young  fellow  of  his  college  he 
conceived  a  fancy  for  seeing  Cornwall,  but  after  three 
days,  at  Penzance  I  think,  he  lost  the  use  of  both  his 
legs  !  Frightened  out  of  his  life  he  got  up  to  London 
somehow,  and  very  naturally  in  the  character,  as  he 
supposed,  of  a  threatened  paralytic  presented  himself 
immediately  at  some  great  physician's  door.  The 
omniscient  one  was  entirely  reassuring,  but  told  him 
that  the  curious  effect  was  not  uncommon  among 
East  Anglians  and  others  who  adventured  in  summer 
time  in  what  is  now  called  by  railway  companies  the 
Cornish  Riviera.     My  father  died  at  eighty  ! 

I  have  since  fished  the  Avon  in  early  spring  when  all 
England  is,  I  think,  pretty  safe  from  debilitating  in- 
fluences. But  I  would  not  give  one  day  of  May  or 
June,  when  the  water  is  low,  for  three  in  spring  when 

221 


CLEAR  WATERS 

it  is  usually  in  what  is  known  as  good  condition — when 
the  streams,  that  is  to  say,  are  heavy  to  beat  up  against 
continually,  and  the  fish  rise  briskly  perhaps  for  a  couple 
of  hours,  and  then  go  down  for  good,  and  the  surface 
of  the  water  becomes,  as  they  say  in  Scotland,  dour. 
Moreover,  in  spring  the  good  fish,  of  which  there  are 
or  were  a  great  many  in  the  Avon,  half  to  three-quarter- 
pounders,  have  not  come  out  into  the  shallows  nor 
taken  seriously  to  surface  food,  as  they  do  later.  I 
think  the  river  in  this  particular  is  rather  difi^erent 
from  most  Devonian  streams,  though  exactly  like  so 
many  of  them  in  physical  characteristics. 

Leaving  the  villages  of  Huish,  Diptford,  Woodleigh, 
and  Loddiswell  to  face  the  south-west  storms  on 
windy  heights  above  it,  the  Avon  cultivates  a  strict 
seclusion.  For  Devonian  villages  are  not  usually 
dreams  of  thatch  and  wattle  nestling  around  orchards 
in  a  valley,  as  commonly  depicted  by  the  gushing 
scribe  since  the  county  became  a  sort  of  literary  fashion 
with  outsiders.  They  mainly  affect  bare  hill-tops, 
and  are  exceedingly  prone  to  slate  and  whitewash,  just 
avoiding  positive  ugliness,  to  do  them  justice,  but 
making  no  claim  whatever  to  the  aesthetic  qualities 
with  which  modern  convention  in  London  and  the 
suburbs  adorns  them  as  if  it  were  their  positive  speci- 
ality. In  such  antiquities  of  all  descriptions  every 
archaeologist  knows  the  western  county  comes  rather 
low  on  the  list.  *  Oh,  isn't  this  like  Devonshire  ? ' 
babbled  a  lady  and  a  novelist  too,  as  we  sped  past 
Chislehurst,  of  all  places,  the  other  day.  I  felt  pain- 
fully tempted  to  paraphrase  old  Bishop  Philpott's  dry 
rejoinder   to    the   gushing   lady,   who    asked   him   if 

222 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

Babbacome  Bay,  above  which  they  were  standing, 
didn't  remind  him  of  Switzerland.  *  Yes,  ma'am, 
very  much ;  only  here  there  are  no  streams,  and  in 
Devonshire  there  are  no  stockbrokers,'  and  this  in  truth 
would  have  been  quite  inadequate  to  the  blazing 
topographical  idiocy  of  my  fellow-traveller's  outburst. 

Urging  its  bright,  impetuous  streams  through  most 
of  its  seaward  pilgrimage  beneath  a  rarely  interrupted 
canopy  of  foliage,  this  obscurest  of  all  EngHsh  Avons 
purls  upon  gravelly  beds  or  lingers  in  deep  rocky  pools, 
overshadowed  by  fern-tufted  crags  and  the  spreading 
foliage  of  wild  woods  that  clothe  the  hill-sides  and 
hold  the  river  in  their  sylvan  grip.  There  are  green 
meadowy  strips  too,  plenty  of  them,  on  one  bank  or 
the  other,  sometimes  on  both.  But  even  then  thick 
foliage  often  bristles  along  both  banks  and  holds  the 
would-be  bank  angler  at  arm's  length.  Old  stone 
bridges,  too,  festooned  with  trailing  ivy,  give  here  and 
there  a  more  perfect  finish  to  some  vista  of  water 
that  dances  through  flickering  bands  of  sun  and 
shadow  beneath  the  swaying  boughs. 

All,  or  nearly  all,  this  water  is  in  the  hands  of  an 
association  whose  moderately  apprised  tickets  make 
any  one  free  of  this  Avon  fishery  who  feels  equal  to 
grappling  with  it,  an  effort  well  worth  the  while. 
But  it  is  no  use  poking  about  dry-shod  on  the  bank 
here  if  you  mean  business,  though  there  are  brief  inter- 
ludes where  you  might  take  your  ease  in  this  rather 
unprofitable  fashion.  You  must  get  right  down  into 
the  water  and  stay  there,  and  push  your  way  between 
and  often  beneath  the  trees,  and  face  a  current  that 
is  generally  strong  and  rocks  that  are  always  glacial. 

223 


CLEAR  WATERS 

The  Avon  is  no  brook,  nor  again  is  it  a  broad  river, 
but  of  precisely  the  right  dimensions  in  my  opinion 
for  a  first-rate  trouting  stream.  I  prefer  it,  as  I  have 
said,  in  May  and  through  half  of  June,  and  do  not 
mind  dry  weather,  sunshine,  and  thinner  water  in 
the  least.  Nor,  I  am  sure,  do  the  Avon  trout.  They 
are  then,  in  my  experience,  almost  always  ready  to 
rise,  and  the  good  ones  too,  if  you  can  circumvent 
them. 

Looking  down  from  the  high  bank  at  such  periods 
when  the  voice  of  the  stream  is  fluting  in  its  highest 
key,  and  the  stickles  are  running  low,  and  the  top 
waves  of  the  pools  have  subsided  into  mere  tremulous 
eddies,  it  looks,  I  admit,  pretty  hopeless.  You  can 
see  the  fish  travelling  affrighted  up  the  gravelly  runs 
into  the  deeper  waters,  among  them  that  old  pounder 
marked  down  of  yore,  followed  by  a  score  of  halves, 
thirds,  and  quarters.  You  will  not,  however,  be  on 
the  bank  when  you  are  fishing,  but  down  in  the  water 
creeping  warily  up  beside  its  alder  fringes,  and  getting 
here  and  there  some  fine  vantage-points  behind  an 
out-thrusting  bush.  No  scurry  of  fish  will  be  thus 
provoked,  thin  and  clear  though  the  stream  be,  if  you 
are  careful.  A  short  line  is  not  usually  much  good. 
This  is  a  convention  much  too  freely  associated  in 
print  with  up-stream  fishing  and  a  short  rod.  Well 
enough  in  high  water  or  in  early  spring  ;  but  a  longish 
line  must  be  thrown  somehow  between  or  under  the 
trees,  and  it  comes  easy  enough  with  habit  and  practice. 
*  Fine  and  far  off '  is  just  as  true  of  this  woodland 
fishing  as  of  a  chalk  stream,  but  with  a  great  difference, 
for  in  the  latter  you  have  probably  a  twenty-acre 
224 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

water  meadow  behind  you,  and  you  must  present  the 
dry  fly  in  becoming  attitude,  properly  cocked,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it. 

It  does  not  so  much  matter  how  you  present  the 
wet  fly.  You  have  got  to  get  it  there  through  diffi- 
culties, above  and  around.  And  you  must  also  know 
where  to  make  the  effort,  and  when  it  is  worth  while  to 
run  risks,  commensurate  with  your  skill,  of  hanging 
up  your  flies.  These  things  are  outside  description, 
nor  can  the  '  smittle '  spots  upon  a  river's  surface  be 
chronicled,  for  experience  alone,  which  becomes  a 
second  instinct,  can  read  such  lessons.  Ingenuous 
fools  have  written  of  wet-fly  fishing  as  an  operation 
conducted  on  *  chuck-and-chance-it '  principles.  Pos- 
sibly they  refer  to  fishing  a  lake  from  a  boat.  Let  us 
hope  so  !  Nor  is  the  phrase  wholly  amiss  as  applied 
to  '  salmon-fishing '  for  trout  down  a  big  river.  But 
in  connection  with  up-stream  fishing,  and  above  all, 
in  such  a  river  as  this  is,  it  is  a  deplorable  exposure  of 
innocence.  Let  the  man  who  can  throw  a  decent 
fly,  and  has  nevertheless  such  callow  conceptions 
of  wet-fly  fishing,  try  his  hand  against  some  habitual 
exponent  of  it !  How  shifting,  too,  according  to 
weather  and  conditions,  are  the  sort  of  places  where 
the  trout  are  feeding.  It  may  sometimes  take  an  hour 
or  so  to  discover  that  some  strange  whim,  as  it  would 
incorrectly  seem  to  us  in  our  ignorance,  has  seized 
upon  the  whole  river,  and  that  every  fish  is,  as  it  were, 
out  of  place  ! 

The  strangest  case  of  this  within  my  own  experience 
occurred  on  the  Welsh  Dee ;  not  on  the  rugged 
reaches  we  traversed  in  a  former  chapter,  but  in  the 
P  225 


CLEAR  WATERS 

swishing,  rippling  streams  among  the  meadows  near 
Corwen,  easily  fished  and  easily  waded  waters,  and  for 
that  reason  less  profitable  to  spend  time  over.     It 
was  one  day  late  in  April,  and  the  river  was  in  lovely 
condition.     But  I  had  laboured  nevertheless  all  morn- 
ing without  even  touching  a  fish,  and  it  was  about 
mid-afternoon  when  I  found  myself  at  the  bottom  of 
the  long,  straight  half-mile  of  wide,   shallow  water 
below  Corwen  bridge,  into  which  one  would  usually 
wade  and  fish  across  and  down.     I  suppose  I  must 
have   seen   a   fish   move,    otherwise     I    should   most 
assuredly  never  have  faced  up-stream  and  put  my  fly 
on  to  such  an  utterly  impossible-looking  spot  of  water. 
For  on  the  shallowest  side  of  the  broad  shallow  the 
water,  being  then  a  little  above  normal  height,  was 
rippling  three  or  four  inches  deep  along  the  foot  of  a 
grassy,  briary  bank  that  stood  back  a  bit  in  ordinary 
times   from  the  river's  pebbly  edge.     At  any  rate, 
close  to  the  grass,  in  water  hardly  deep  enough  to 
cover  his  back  fin,  I  secured  a  goodly  half-pound  trout. 
While  engaged  in  disposing  of  it,  I  beheld  another  fish 
bestir  himself  a  little  higher  up  in  the  same  uncanny 
sort  of  place,  uncanny,  that  is  to  say,  for  such  a  big 
river,  and  poke  his  head  up  close  to  the  grassy  foot  of 
the  bank.     The  water  did  not  cover  my  brogues,  but 
putting  out  a  longish  Hne,  this  one  took  greedily  at 
the  first  offer,  and  proved  the  equal  of  the  last.     To 
shorten  my  story,  I  fished  up  the  foot  of  that  hedge, 
dry  as  a  board  in  normal  water,  and  throwing  my  fly 
as  close  as  possible  to  the  grass,  the  rippling  water 
being  nowhere  more  than  four  or  five  inches  deep,  I 
killed  seven  half-pounders,  one  after  the  other — an 
226 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

achievement  in  successive  weight  that  neither  before 
nor  since  have  I  ever  accomplished  in  the  sacred  Dee. 
And  then  I  broke  the  middle  joint  of  my  rod  short  off, 
tugging  too  fiercely  at  a  rambling  briar  in  which  my 
fly  had  fastened,  and  had  nothing  for  it  but  to  go 
home  !  There  was  another  hundred  or  more  yards  of 
that  hedge-foot  yet  to  be  fished,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
another  seven  or  eight  fish  of  the  same  class  waiting 
to  be  caught.  Two  or  three  habitual  anglers,  who 
knew  every  pebble  in  the  river,  came  in  that  evening 
with  sore  hearts  and  empty  baskets,  marvelling  how 
even  Dee  trout,  queer  as  they  are,  could  have  main- 
tained such  an  uncompromising  sulk  throughout  the 
whole  of  such  a  perfect  fishing  day.  But  for  a  mere 
accident  I,  too,  should  of  course  have  been  numbered 
among  the  unfortunates ;  for  no  angler  would  ever 
have  dreamed  of  considering  for  a  moment  such  an 
impossible  place  for  the  choicer  trout  of  a  big  river 
running  down  in  beautiful  fly  order,  to  be  lying  and 
feeding  in.  For  myself,  I  never  had  the  opportunity 
of  finding  the  water  just  sprawling  over  the  gravel 
to  the  edge  of  that  bank  again.  And  I  doubt  if  any 
one  since  has  had  the  good  luck  to  be  fortuitously 
attracted  to  it  as  I  was  under  the  same  conditions. 
It  was  cruel,  however,  to  be  thus  checked  in  mid 
career ;  for  one  breaks  a  middle  joint  once,  perhaps, 
in  five  years,  and  then  probably  by  sitting  down  upon 
it  in  a  moment  of  aberration  ! 

To  retrace  our  straying  footsteps  to  the  banks  of 
the  Avon,  I  venture  to  recall  a  humorous  incident 
which  occurred  there  in  the  long  ago  when  I  first 
began  to  know  them  well.     Now  it  so  happened  that 

227 


CLEAR  WATERS 

an  immigrant  from  Yorkshire,  I  think  a  retired  trades- 
man, had  bought  a  few  acres  of  land  and  built  himself 
a  house  of  rather  singular  aspect  by  the  river's  side. 
A  strange  Yorkshireman  in  the  sequestered  heart  of 
Devon  is,  I  need  not  say,  almost  as  much  a  foreigner 
as  a  Frenchman  from  the  rustic  point  of  view,  an  alien 
to  be  held  at  arm's  length  and  pelted  with  the  brick- 
bats of  rural  criticism.  It  is  equally  certain,  too, 
that  the  criticisms  would  be  returned  with  compound 
interest  by  a  scornful  and  canny  northerner  thus 
situated.  Mutual  relations  were  at  any  rate  a  trifle 
strained.  So  when  the  landowners  threw  their  re- 
spective waters  into  the  fishing  association  at  its  in- 
ception, the  Yorkshireman  stubbornly  refused  to  do 
anything  of  the  kind,  and  consequently,  when  you 
got  to  his  little  demesne  you  had  to  skip  a  couple  of 
hundred  yards  of  most  excellent  water  or  run  the  risk 
of  facing  his  quite  justifiable  indignation.  On  the 
occasion  in  question  a  young  curate  from  a  distance, 
innocent  of  this  obstacle  to  the  otherwise  unchecked 
career  his  ticket  ensured  him,  had  applied  himself  with 
ardour  to  the  three  or  four  excellent  pools  on  the 
Yorkshireman's  ground,  and  was  fortunate  enough  in 
one  of  them  to  hook  and  kill  a  fish  of  over  a  pound 
weight.  And  not  only  that,  but  in  his  innocence  and 
lightness  of  heart  for  the  sockdolager  in  his  basket,  he 
sat  down  close  to  the  owner's  house,  and  having  there 
consumed  his  lunch,  lit  his  pipe  to  enjoy  his  triumph 
in  a  beatific  state  of  mind  we  can  all  of  us  sympathise 
with.  It  was  not  till  then  that  the  ogre  espied  the 
audacious  intruder,  and  hurrying  to  the  scene  asked 
him  if  he  knew  what  he  was  doing.  The  curate,  not 
228 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

then  in  a  mood  perhaps  to  distinguish  between  the 
friendly  and  the  hostile  note  in  what  he  considered  a 
futile  question,  replied  that  he  was  enjoying  himself 
very  much  and  had  just  killed  a  splendid  fish  over  a 
pound  in  weight.  '  You  don't  tell  me  that,'  said  the 
Yorkshireman,  bridling  his  choler,  which,  I  fear  from 
frequent  provocation,  was  not  usually  held  in  check  at 
these  encounters.  *  We  don't  get  many  fish  of  that 
size  here  ;  let 's  have  a  look  at  him.'  So  the  pounder 
was  handed  over  for  inspection  by  the  happy,  artless 
curate  to  the  guileful  northerner,  who  at  once  ap- 
propriated it,  and  having  explained  the  situation 
to  the  now  dumbfounded  angler,  fired  him  off  the 
premises.  The  stalwart  and  uncompromising  York- 
shireman is  now  no  more.  His  naturalised  descend- 
ants are  at  peace  with  the  world  and  the  association, 
and  are  doubtless  possessed  of  a  beautiful  Devonshire 
accent.  The  last  time  I  fished  the  Avon  I  trod  the 
once  sacred  enclosure  in  the  full  sense  of  moral  right 
and  legal  security. 

I  used  to  fancy  Woodleigh  wood,  or  'C/dleigh  'wde 
(with  the  Devon  u  of  course),  as  the  old  natives  had  it, 
as  much  as  any  stretch  in  this  delightful  river.  It 
clothes  the  high  hill-sides  with  a  fine  tangle  of  varied 
foliage  and  spreads  its  protecting  fringes  over  the  pools 
and  stickles  for  a  long  mile  or  so  above  Loddiswell. 
But  down  in  the  river,  if  you  do  not  mind  timber, 
there  is  here  a  prolonged  treat  of  good  things  as  you 
push  up  the  current  beneath  the  overhanging  boughs 
of  oak  and  hazel,  of  alder  and  mountain  ash.  Barbed 
wire,  to  be  sure,  has  added  new  terrors  for  the  fisher- 
man as  it  has  for  the  fox-hunter.     Once  upon  a  time 

229 


CLEAR  WATERS 

you  could  drag  yourself  up  the  densely  fringed  steep 
bank  of  the  Avon  when  you  felt  in  the  mood  for  a  rest 
or  were  confronted  with  deep  water.  You  could  cram 
your  rod,  basket,  and  landing-net  somehow  through  the 
thick  frieze  of  tree  roots,  saplings,  and  briars,  and 
achieve  the  upper  air  and  a  grassy  resting-place.  The 
last  time,  however,  I  battled  with  these  rough  rocks 
and  swift  currents,  the  swifter  on  that  occasion  for 
April  rains,  all  old  avenues  of  escape  were  destroyed, 
the  natural  chevaux  de  frise  being  everywhere  en- 
twined with  barbed  wire ;  and  when  all  further 
progress  up  the  river  was  barred  by  some  deep  pool, 
you  were  virtually  imprisoned  in  a  cul-de-sac.  There 
was  nothing  for  it  but  to  wade  wearily  down  again 
over  the  waters  you  had  just  fished,  and  clamber  out 
into  the  upper  air  at  the  point  from  which  you  de- 
scended into  it. 

This  waste  of  time  and  energy  is  particularly  annoy- 
ing in  spring  fishing,  if  the  trout  happen  to  be  on  the 
rise.  For,  unless  the  season  be  very  forward,  a  great 
objection  to  spring  trouting  in  my  opinion  in  this  class 
of  river  is  that  the  rise,  though  sometimes  furious  and 
uncritical,  is  usually  Hmited  to  an  hour  or  two,  leaving 
those  before  and  afterwards  a  rather  weary  blank  of 
futile  casting  upon  dour  waters.  Every  fisherman, 
of  course,  knows  this,  and  furthermore  that  you  can 
never  be  certain  when  that  brief  but  bHthesome 
interlude  will  take  place,  to  say  nothing  of  the  possi- 
bility of  its  never  turning  up  at  all,  though  this  last, 
of  course,  is  all  in  the  angler's  business.  It  is  tolerably 
certain  that  it  will  occur  between  eleven  and  four,  and 
in  rivers  like  the  Avon  one  is  constantly  haunted  by 
250 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

the  fear  that  the  fish  will  come  on  in  awkward  or  in- 
different bits  of  water,  sandwiched  between  the  pet 
places  you  have  already  fished  in  vain,  and  those  again 
higher  up  where  you  fain  would  be.  It  is  not  safe 
when  the  moment  seems  to  have  arrived  either  to  push 
on  or  to  drop  back,  for  you  might  possibly  find  another 
rod  in  possession.  Moreover,  it  is  not  easy  to  drag 
oneself  from  any  water  when  fish  come  suddenly  on 
the  rise  and  face  a  journey  through  tangled  woods  or 
over  untrimmed  Devon  fences,  in  waders  and  brogues, 
when  you  know  all  the  time  that  the  trout  are  splash- 
ing merrily  at  the  March  browns  or  blue  duns.  It  is 
better  to  stick  to  it  and  receive  this  gift  of  the  gods 
wherever  it  finds  you  on  the  stream.  So  it  comes  to 
pass  that  very  often  two  anglers  of  equal  capacity  will 
turn  out  very  different  baskets  on  an  April  evening. 

Queer  things,  however,  happen  in  every  month.  Not 
very  long  ago,  after  nearly  a  week  of  battling  with  the 
rather  full  April  streams  of  the  Avon  in  most  inclement 
weather  and  with  very  poor  luck,  my  last  day  had 
arrived.  It  was  far  the  worst  to  all  outward  seeming, 
even  of  this  bad  week.  As  I  descended  to  the  river  be- 
low Loddiswell  station,  a  biting  north-easter  cut  rasp- 
ingly  down  even  that  sheltered  valley.  To  make  the 
situation  from  an  angling  standpoint  more  supremely 
ridiculous,  a  violent  thunderstorm  without  rain  broke 
upon  the  scene  while  in  mournful  mood  I  was  putting 
up  my  rod.  Fork-lightning  played  in  the  leaden  sky 
above  the  bare  hill-top  where  the  village  of  Loddiswell 
shivered  in  the  icy  blast,  and  repeated  crashes  of  thunder 
rolled  down  the  vaUey  towards  Kingsbridge  and  the 
sea.     This,  in  truth,  seemed  a  gratuitous  piling  up  of 

231 


CLEAR  WATERS 

the  agony  on  an  unfortunate  angler,  with  no  alter- 
native for  hours  but  the  waiting-room  of  a  diminutive 
station.  If  the  humblest  inn  or  fireside  had  been 
accessible  I  should  have  lost  a  quite  enjoyable  day's 
fishing  to  an  absolute  certainty. 

As  it  was,  I  descended  into  the  icy  waters  where  they 
come  out  into  the  meadows  from  Woodleigh  wood, 
and  at  the  very  first  cast  to  my  amazement  was  into 
a  good  fish.  I  took  three  out  of  that  pool  in  quick 
succession  while  the  thunder  was  still  rumbling,  and 
the  lightning  playing,  and  the  north-east  wind  lashing 
the  bursting  willows  on  the  bank,  and  threatening 
snowflakes  every  moment.  They  were  the  better 
class  of  Avon  fish,  and  weighed  a  pound  between  them. 
I  went  on  picking  up  fish  all  the  morning,  for  in  the 
heart  of  the  woods  the  cold  wind  seemed  to  sink  to 
rest,  and  a  rise  of  blue  dun  set  the  trout  astir  in 
flagrant  violation  of  every  rule  which  is  supposed  to 
guide  them.  But  better,  to  my  thinking,  than  zephyrs 
and  April  showers  are  those  days  in  the  thinner  waters 
of  later  May  and  early  June  when  fish  may  be  picked 
up  on  and  off  all  day,  and  on  the  whole  better  ones 
too,  if  harder  to  catch.  The  playing  of  a  strong 
June  fish,  too,  in  these  leafy  avenues,  amid  rocks, 
boughs,  and  rapid  currents,  is  a  different  business 
from  the  same  encounter  in  an  open  stream.  There 
are  about  twenty  more  things  to  think  about,  and  no 
time  to  think  of  them,  as  the  fish  dashes  and  jumps 
from  one  danger  spot  to  another,  and  the  point  of 
the  rod  has  to  be  dipped  like  lightning  under  trailing 
boughs,  and  the  line  shortened  as  quickly  by  a  grab 
at  it  below  the  bottom  ring.  Instructions  to  a  young 
252 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

angler  how  to  play  a  fish  would  be  mighty  little  good 
here  !  There  is  no  time  to  reel  in  during  these  fast 
and  furious  early  stages  as  the  trout  runs  down  towards 
you  or  darts  like  lightning  for  a  submerged  bush. 
And  with  a  longish  line  out  these  critical  moments 
are  inevitable,  while  as  for  holding  the  point  of  your 
rod  up,  you  have  got  to  hold  it  at  just  such  an  angle 
as  the  all-embracing  foliage  for  the  moment  admits  of. 
A  half-pound  fish  will  give  you  no  end  of  a  time  in 
such  situations  for  about  thirty  seconds.  After  that 
another  minute,  perhaps,  may  see  him  in  the  net. 
Though  if  perchance  you  are  a  fixture,  as  often  happens 
where  the  depth  of  an  uneven  slippery  bottom  varies 
from  one  to  three  or  more  feet,  you  may  have  had  to 
let  him  run  down  stream  a  long  way,  and  be  forced 
to  reel  him  on  fine  gut,  by  slow  stages  up  a  rapid 
current,  which  is  a  slow  and  ticklish  business.  A 
three-quarter-pounder,  which  is  always  possible  in 
the  Avon,  will  give  you  anywhere  in  its  waters,  and 
above  all  in  these  very  prevalent  awkward  places, 
some  really  stirring  moments.  You  should  not  be 
wholly  ungrateful  if  you  get  him  safely  in  at  all,  and 
the  encounter,  if  successful,  will  possibly  occupy  five 
minutes,  which  will  seem  like  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
I  am  talking,  of  course,  of  real  honest  half-  and  three- 
quarter-pounders,  not  those  lesser  fry  which  anglers, 
particularly  those  accustomed  to  waters  where  trout 
run  large  sometimes,  airily  allude  to  as  such.  A  half- 
pounder  in  the  Kennet  or  the  Test  is  by  comparison 
a  poor,  immature  weakling,  who  in  his  own  waters, 
unvexed  by  trailing  boughs  and  rocks,  and  torrents 
and  sunken  bushes,  may  be  handled  with  something 


CLEAR  WATERS 

like  contempt.  But  in  the  western  streams  he  is  a 
well-developed  lusty  veteran,  the  tyrant  and  the  bully 
of  the  few  square  yards  of  water  over  which  he  rules. 
As  I  have  already  intimated,  in  the  Devonshire  Avon 
the  herring-sized  fish,  going  about  three  to  the 
pound,  are  far  more  numerous  than  in  most  Devonshire 
streams.  This  evidence  of  good  feeding — for  the  look 
of  the  river  hardly  suggests  this  standard — used  to  be 
attributed,  whether  truly  or  not,  to  the  presence  of 
the  fresh-water  shrimp. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  tail  fly  in  up-stream, 
clear-water  fishing  kills  two  or  three  fish  for  one  taken 
on  the  dropper,  or  droppers  if  a  couple  are  used — not 
altogether  advisable,  I  think.  It  alone  reaches  many 
of  the  far-away  fish,  and  gets  into  brushy  nooks,  par- 
ticularly where  the  water  is  shallow,  and  a  sHght  but 
significant  enough  wave  is  the  glad  sign  of  a  fastening 
fish.  The  trout  at  this  season  and  in  such  places,  if 
they  come  at  all,  nearly  always  mean  business,  and 
are  generally  of  the  better  type.  Where  a  screen  of 
alder  brush  dips  into  a  gravelly  run,  with  little  recesses 
here  and  there,  into  which,  standing  well  below,  you 
can  curl  your  tail  fly  sideways,  are  perhaps  the  spots 
which  on  these  bright  early  summer  days  upon  the 
Avon  come  back  to  me  as  the  most  proHfic  of  all  upon 
the  varied  surface  of  this  beautiful  stream.  And  as 
tail  fly  upon  the  Avon  at  this  season  there  is  nothing 
like,  certainly  nothing  better  than,  a  good  old-fashioned 
Devonshire  red  palmer — not  a  c6ch-y-bonddu,  but 
a  rather  full  red  hackle  with  a  plain  body,  and  with 
for  choice  a  few  turns  of  gold  twist  round  it.  Four 
varieties  of  the  red  palmer,  as  used  by  the  oldest  and 
234 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

best  fisherman  I  knew  upon  the  Avon,  have  occupied 
a  pocket  of  my  fly-book  for  the  last  twenty  years,  on 
*  in  memoriam '  account  alone.  His  generation  never 
dreamed  of  fishing  without  one.  It  is  certainly  a 
wonderful  fly  there  in  early  summer,  the  fish  taking 
it  under  water  as  freely  as  on  the  surface. 

The  decline  in  the  number  of  fish,  probably  in  a 
majority  of  rapid  rivers,  is,  I  think,  an  accepted  fact, 
and  is  certainly  a  perennial  source  of  discussion  among 
anglers,  and  that,  too,  in  rivers  where  neither  poach- 
ing nor  over-fishing  can  have  had  anything  to  do  with 
the  trouble  ;  for  in  such  cases  there  is  nothing  to  discuss 
or  theorise  about.  The  Avon  is  a  case  in  point.  I 
am  pretty  sure  there  are  as  many  fish  as  there  were 
twenty  years  ago,  and  in  fact  there  are  quite  enough 
for  any  reasonable  person.  It  was,  roughly  speaking, 
in  the  twenty  to  thirty  years  before  that  period  that 
the  change  was  effected  by  some  mysterious  agency, 
here,  as  in  other  streams  known  to  me  in  many  parts 
of  the  west  and  north.  In  a  long  spring  and  summer 
— for  other  brief  visits  are  not  worth  considering — 
I  spent  upon  the  Avon,  I  never  killed  more  than  five- 
and-twenty  sizeable  fish  in  a  day.  And  I  am  quite 
certain  that  much  larger  baskets  were  not  then  made 
by  any  one,  nor  indeed  would  an  occasional  exception 
alter  the  case.  But  in  the  sixties  thrice  that  number 
were  frequently  taken.  There  was  some  correspond- 
ence in  the  Field  many  years  ago  as  to  the  baskets 
made  here  in  these  brave  old  days  by  local  worthies, 
country  parsons  and  suchlike — ^how  they  fiUed  their 
creels  and  then  their  pockets,  till  even  these  last  over- 
flowed,  obviously  not   from   any   mysterious  super- 


CLEAR  WATERS 

excellence,  for  many  an  expert,  more  efficiently  armed 
and  with  finer  tackle,  has  fished  the  river  since  these 
days.  I  have  good  reason,  however,  for  knowing  that 
these  tales  are  absolutely  true.  The  contrast  between 
the  then  and  now,  or  rather  between  the  then  and 
twenty  years  ago,  must  be  looked  for  in  this  case  as  in 
many  others  to  some  natural  cause.  Nothing  con- 
cerned with  fishing,  legal  or  illegal,  has  brought  it 
about ;  that,  at  any  rate,  is  pretty  certain.  The  theory 
of  improved  drainage  which  carries  off  flood  water 
and  its  store  of  feed  in  a  day  instead  of  several  days 
seems  to  me  the  most  worthy  of  consideration  ;  a 
theory  which  may  be  applied  to  scores  of  rivers  like 
the  Avon  with  plausibility,  for  there  really  is  no  other. 
The  Barle  of  my  boyish  Exmoor  days,  for  instance,  is 
another  case  in  point.  There  is  nothing  like  the 
stock  there  was  then.  The  casual,  unobservant  person 
goes  on  repeating  in  all  these  cases  that  there  are  more 
fishermen  than  of  old.  This  sounds  reasonable,  but 
it  is  not  always  true,  and  even  were  it  so,  amounts  to 
nothing  when  the  fecundity  of  trout  and  the  frac- 
tional toll  taken  with  a  rod  and  easily  estimated  in 
protected  rivers,  is  totted  up. 

A  curious  coincidence  occurred  during  the  last  visit 
I  paid  to  the  Avon,  and  if  the  hero  concerned  catches 
sight  of  these  lines,  I  hope  he  will  forgive  me.  Now 
on  the  Welsh  border  there  was,  and  possibly  still  is,  a 
certain  cleric  who  enjoyed  a  tremendous  and  justly 
earned  reputation  as  an  angler.  Though  a  native, 
his  cure  of  souls  happened  to  lie  in  a  county  in  which, 
from  my  knowledge  of  it,  I  should  say  there  is  not  a 
trout  but  such  as  have  been  recently  introduced  into 
236 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

reservoirs  and  the  like.  But  his  operations  were  still, 
and  naturally  enough,  carried  on  upon  his  native 
streams.  I  know  some  of  these  last  pretty  well  myself, 
and  also  many  of  the  local  fishermen  who  are  justly 
accounted  great  men  upon  them,  and  with  one  voice 
they  used  to  declare  that  there  was  no  approaching 
this  terrific  parson  in  the  matter  of  a  basket.  I  have 
often  heard  them,  both  gentle  and  simple,  discuss  the 
problem  of  why  and  how  it  was  that  he  never  failed 
to  make  them  all  feel  second-raters  when  he  descended 
into  their  midst.  But  such  was  undoubtedly  the  case, 
and  there  are  other  magicians  of  this  kind  in  various 
parts  of  England,  men  who  for  some  mysterious  reason 
stand  out  above  the  best.  It  was  even  said  that  some 
owners  hesitated  to  give  this  one  a  day's  fishing,  which 
merely  exhibited  their  ignorance  of  the  natural  history 
of  trout.  His  patterns  of  flies  were  eagerly  sought  after, 
and  named  after  his  name.  But  this  was  no  good. 
The  users  of  them  had  half-baskets  while  the  parson 
filled  his.  He  has  even  been  watched  by  envious 
professors  to  see  if  he  has  any  special  patent  dodge, 
but  there  was  obviously  nothing  of  the  kind.  His 
execution  was  apparently  precisely  the  same  as  that 
of  any  other  good  local  fisherman. 

But  this  brings  me  back  to  the  gist  of  the  story  and 
the  fact  that  when  fishing  the  Avon  some  three  or 
four  years  ago  an  old  local  friend  officially  connected 
with  the  river  remarked,  among  other  items  of  gossip, 
*  We  have  got  a  demon  fisherman  on  the  river  now, 
a  regular  otter.  He  has  killed  bigger  baskets  than  any 
one  within  my  memory.'  [This  last  went  back  fifteen 
or  twenty  years.]     *  His  name,'  quoth  I.     *  Captain 

237 


CLEAR  WATERS 

,'  replied  my  friend.     *  Good  Heavens ! '  said  I, 

for  the  name  was  a  rare  one,  *  a  brother  of  the  famous 
parson,  I  'd  lay  a  hundred  to  one.'  And  so  he  proved. 
Here  indeed  was  a  study  in  heredity !  I  positively 
dreaded  to  meet  him  on  the  river.  It  was  that  un- 
satisfactory week  before  alluded  to,  which  ended  up  so 
genially  in  the  north-east  wind  and  the  thunderstorm ; 
for  abjure  rivalry  as  you  may,  and  as  I  always  try  to  in 
fishing,  it  is  never  pleasant  to  encounter  success  with 
failure.  Moreover,  I  met  the  keeper  in  due  course, 
and  he  instantly  unbosomed  himself  on  the  subject, 
namely  that  of  the  newcomer,  the  like  of  whom  had 
never  been  seen  in  his  time  on  the  river.  His  baskets 
ran  up  in  the  neighbourhood  of  fifty  fish,  which  was 
certainly  an  unprecedented  figure  in  modern  times, 
and  there  were  plenty  of  experts  here  as  on  the  Welsh 
border. 

Now  this  is  really  curious  and  should  give  fishermen 
something  to  think  about,  though  on  the  lay  reader 
its  significance  must  inevitably  be  lost.  It  is  indeed 
a  matter  of  scientific  interest  that  two  brothers  should 
be  thus  miraculously  endowed.  There  is  no  dry  fly 
subtlety  in  their  case,  no  casting  of  phenomenally  long 
lines  with  a  fly  laid  beautifully  cocked  at  the  end  of 
them,  no  persistent  studies  of  nymphs  and  imagos  and 
cunning  contrivance  of  imitations.  In  fact,  I  doubt 
if  any  dry-fly  fishermen  stand  out  with  such  singular 
consistency  above  their  brother  experts !  It  is  in  this 
case  simply  a  question  of  thrashing  up-stream  with 
practically  the  same  flies  as  other  men  who  have  also 
been  at  it  all  their  hves. 

These  occasional  superfishermen,  if  the  phrase  be  per- 
238 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

missible,  are  to  be  fouivl  on  lakes,  too,  which  is  still  more 
curious ;  for  lake  fishing  from  a  boat,  the  least  attrac- 
tive to  my  mind  under  most  conditions  of  all  forms  of 
trouting,  one  would  think,  reduced  all  practised  fisher- 
men who  indulge  in  it  to  more  or  less  even  baskets. 
But  I  have  encountered  at  least  three  lake-fishers  in  my 
life  who  are  admitted  to  be  supermen  in  this  respect, 
and  invariably  bring  home  the  largest  basket  in  what- 
ever company  and  on  whatever  water  they  may  find 
themselves.  One  of  them  was  a  Welsh  squire,  the 
other  an  English  parson,  and  the  third  a  commercial 
gentleman.  The  latter  represented  England  against 
Scotland  in  the  competitions  that  are  or  used  to  be 
held  on  Lochleven.  He  was  quite  frank  himself  re- 
garding his  phenomenal  gift,  and  admitted  his  in- 
ability to  account  for  it.  Lake  fishing  over  a  drift  of  all 
methods  of  trouting  one  would  fancy  left  nothing  by 
which  the  most  gifted  angler  could  consistently  lift 
himself  above  his  brother  experts.  The  last-men- 
tioned one  had  a  theory  that  some  kind  of  fourth 
sense  had  been  vouchsafed  him  which  enabled  him  in 
some  mysterious  way  to  divine  and  anticipate  the 
movements  of  unseen  fish. 

The  Avon  isn't  everybody's  river — not  by  any 
means !  There  has  been,  I  think,  some  thinning  out 
done  of  late  years,  but  I  have  often  seen  strange  anglers, 
officers  or  the  like  from  Plymouth,  wandering  down 
the  woody  banks  below  Garabridge  or  Avonwick, 
asking  in  despair  where  the  river  was  get-at-able. 
These  were  mostly  no  doubt  what  the  Devon  folk  used 
to  call  '  up-countrymen,'  handy  enough  some  of  them 
perhaps  on  moorland,  or  water  meadows,  or  on  lakes,  but 

239 


CLEAR  WATERS 

daunted  at  the  first  flush  by  the  uncompromisingly 
sylvan  character  of  this  river,  on  to  whose  banks  the 
little  train  had  dumped  them.  A  military  friend  of 
mine  who  used  sometimes  to  fish  for  sewin  with  me 
in  the  bush-free  waters  of  West  Wales,  and  heard  me 
speak  betimes  of  the  Devonshire  Avon  with  that  strong 
regard  I  feel  for  it,  hailed  upon  this  very  account  the 
call  of  duty  which  planted  him  at  Plymouth  for  a 
season.  He  was  one  of  those  anglers,  of  whom  I  fancy 
there  are  a  good  few,  who,  I  am  convinced,  enjoy  the 
prospect  of  fishing  and  its  after-memories  more  than 
its  actual  realities ;  and  these  mental  and  conversational 
pleasures  associated  with  the  gentle  art  are  of  course 
perfectly  genuine.  In  hunting  or  shooting  such  an 
attitude  comes  instantly  under  the  suspicion  of  pose. 
But  humbug  is  happily  impossible  in  trouting,  and 
these  people,  I  am  quite  convinced,  honestly  enjoy 
those  anticipated  excursions  which  will  very  likely 
never  be  made  and  the  recollection  of  others  actually 
achieved  but  clouded  at  the  moment  with  disappoint- 
ments now  forgotten.  All  the  aesthetic  and  outdoor 
charm  of  the  craft  appeals  to  their  imagination,  but 
when  it  comes  to  the  actual  point  the  glamour  fades  a 
little,  or  perhaps  they  are  a  bit  lazy,  while  they  are  sure 
to  be  rather  indifferent  performers. 

However,  my  friend  went  to  Plymouth  full  of  rosy 
anticipation  of  many  spring  and  summer  days  upon 
my  much  esteemed  river,  which  is  only  about  an  hour 
by  rail  from  the  famous  west  country  seaport  and 
garrison  town.  He  did  get  there  once,  of  course,  but 
only  once,  and  he  wrote  to  me  that  he  most  assuredly 
would  never  repeat  the  experiment.  He  could  not 
240 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

understand  my  predilection  for  the  river  or  indeed 
how  anybody  caught  any  fish  there.  The  trees  were 
too  thick,  the  banks  were  too  high,  and  the  wading 
too  rough.  It  must  be  said  he  was  rather  middle- 
aged  in  habit  of  body  as  well  as  in  years,  and  a  very 
middling  fisherman.  But  he  was  one  of  those  enthu- 
siasts who  fish  a  great  deal  in  dreams,  and  thoroughly 
enjoy  the  prospect  of  days  and  hours  that  are  so  rarely 
fulfilled.  And  after  all  why  should  they  not  ?  I  re- 
member, too,  on  a  certain  day  in  early  June  when  the 
fish  were  taking  nicely,  encountering  a  young  marine 
sitting  gloomily  munching  his  sandwiches  on  the  bank 
of  the  Avon  at  one  of  its  open  interludes.  He  com- 
plained bitterly  of  the  secretive  nature  of  the  stream, 
and  that  he  had  been  sitting  aU  the  morning  by  the  big 
open  pool  beside  him  waiting  to  see  a  fish  rise.  As  the 
fish  were  then  feeding  in  the  stickles  and  runs  his  vigil 
had  of  course  been  bootless.  He  proved,  poor  fellow, 
to  be  an  embryo  dry-fly  fisherman,  nurtured  up  in 
Hertfordshire  or  some  such  country,  and  a  victim  of 
dry-fly  literature  in  what  may  be  called  its  arrogant 
days.  He  honestly  thought  that '  chuck-and-chance-it ' 
fishing,  as  he  called  it,  had  disappeared  among  sports- 
men everywhere,  and  that  waiting  for  a  rise  and  throw- 
ing a  dry  fly  over  it  was  the  only  legitimate  method  of 
catching  a  trout.  And  the  Avon  seemed  to  him  a 
deplorably  awkward  river  for  such  noble  endeavours,  as 
indeed  it  was.  Of  course  he  was  young  and  hadn't 
been  properly  *  bred  a  fisherman.'  So  presuming  on 
the  discrepancy  of  our  years,  which  for  that  matter  I 
could  gladly  have  dispensed  with,  I  endeavoured  to 
get  him  into  a  more  knowledgeable  frame  of  mind, 
Q  241 


CLEAR  WATERS 

by  explaining  that  he  was  in  another  world  from 
Hertfordshire,  and  must  brush  all  these  fallacies  from 
his  mind  if  he  wished  to  be  a  happy  angler  and  enjoy 
the  four  years  of  Plymouth,  to  which  he  told  me  he  was 
destined.  I  felt  I  might  venture,  when  we  had  smoked 
a  pipe  together,  to  offer  him  an  illustration  of  how  all 
of  us,  good,  bad,  and  indifferent,  fished  a  woody,  west 
country  stream.  He  came  along  with  me  on  the  bank 
above  for  half  an  hour,  and  though  the  spectacle  could 
not  have  been  of  much  practical  service  to  him  he 
was  quite  grateful,  and  declared  that  his  eyes  were 
opened  to  a  condition  of  things  he  had  never  dreamed 
of  and  that  he  would  re-commence  his  angling  career, 
which  I  do  not  think  had  been  a  very  full  one, 
from  another  standpoint.  I  dare  say  before  he  was 
ordered  off  to  Chatham  or  Portsmouth  he  became 
quite  an  adept,  for  he  was  very  keen. 

I  don't  know  whether  the  Avon  is  more  beautiful 
in  April  or  in  June.  Its  lush  verdure  in  the  latter 
month  is  delightful,  and  I  like  better  to  fish  it  then 
for  reasons  more  than  sufficiently  stated.  But  in  the 
spring,  in  the  woods  of  Devon,  above  all  along  the 
margin  of  the  streams,  what  a  spangled  carpet  nature 
spreads  upon  the  cool  mossy  ground,  before  the 
foliage  of  the  trees  and  saplings  has  yet  been  shaken 
out  and  the  eye  become  accustomed  to  the  warmth 
and  colouring  of  summer  verdure.  What  a  blaze  is 
here  of  primrose,  violet,  and  celandine,  of  campion, 
anemone,  and  marigold  beneath  the  still  bare  branches 
of  the  oak  and  ash  which  play  so  prominent  a  part  in 
Devonian  woods.  One  misses,  to  be  sure,  the  opulent 
sycamore,  that  precocious  harbinger  of  summer,  by 
242 


THE  DEVONSHIRE  AVON 

the  streams  of  Wales  and  Cumberland.  And  if  the 
larch,  first  of  all  trees  to  illuminate  the  brown  woods, 
is  in  fair  and  welcome  evidence  here,  one  may  be 
thankful  for  the  comparative  scarcity  of  the  sombre 
pine  in  all  its  varieties.  The  rectangular  fir  plantation 
with  its  monotonous  colouring  and  stiffness  of  out- 
line, so  baneful  to  my  thinking  in  many  northern 
valleys,  is  happily  not  an  obtrusive  feature  in  south- 
west England. 

Both  salmon  and  peal  (Devonian  for  sea  trout)  run 
up  the  Avon  in  Hmited  quantities,  but  very  few  of  the 
former  are  taken,  while  the  latter  do  not,  as  in  the 
Tavy,  rise  freely  either  by  day  or  night.  Let  us  hope, 
even  if  such  a  thing  be  possible,  no  attempt  will  be 
made  to  spoil  one  of  the  best  trout  streams  in  the 
county  by  turning  it  into  a  second-class  salmon  river ; 
for  there  is  Httle  doubt  that  a  horde  of  young  salmon 
fry  makes  demands  upon  the  food  of  a  river  that 
is  most  detrimental  to  its  stock  of  trout.  The  Barle, 
the  Bray,  and  the  torrential  and  beautiful  Lynn  seem 
still  to  retain  a  fair  portion  of  their  old  fecundity.  The 
Tavy,  which  the  peal  love  and  rise  freely  in,  though 
the  salmon  reject  it  for  the  larger  Tamar,  is  also  a 
fair  trouting  stream  despite  the  copper  mines  in  its 
upper  waters.  So  are  the  Lydd  and  the  Lew,  which 
flow  out  of  Dartmoor  to  join  the  Tamar  with  the 
Plym,  the  Meavy,  and  the  Walkham,  all  beautiful 
little  rivers  which  find  their  several  ways  into  Ply- 
mouth Sound. 

Away  from  the  two  great  moors  and  their  skirts,  the 
beauty  of  inland  Devon  lies  almost  wholly  in  its  deep, 
winding  valleys.     Save  perhaps  in  the  south-east,  the 

243 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Honiton  portion  of  the  county  and  a  few  others,  look 
almost  where  you  will,  from  any  inland  hill-top,  you 
will  see  little  but  a  succession  of  bare,  humpy  hills 
criss-crossed  with  rectangular  lines  of  bank  fences, 
and  everywhere  patched  with  square  tillage  fields. 
A  distant  background  of  moor  redeems  in  a  measure 
these  long,  rolling,  chequered  ridges,  neither  wild  nor 
wooded,  that  nothing  but  a  hardy  superstition  could 
absolve  from  the  reproach  of  monotony  if  not  of 
actual  ugliness.  Dreary  outlooks  are  these  beyond 
dispute,  yet  not  dreary  enough  to  touch  the  imagina- 
tion with  a  redeeming  sense  of  mystery.  A  survey 
of  the  same  kind  in  Hereford  or  Monmouth,  let  us  say 
for  example,  because  the  colouring  there  also  is  De- 
vonian, is  rich,  broken,  and  beautiful.  But  one  cannot 
truly  say  that  such  outlooks  over  the  average  inland 
Devon  landscape  is  anything  of  the  kind,  and  the  many 
exceptions  are  not  to  the  point,  for  the  valleys  are 
hidden,  and  it  is  down  in  the  valleys  that  most  of  the 
beauty  of  non-moorland  inland  Devon  assuredly  lies, 
and  of  this  beauty  the  trout  fisherman  most  un- 
doubtedly sees  the  most  and  the  best. 


244 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 


VIII 

THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

AMONG  the  many  hardy  delusions  of  the  kind 
yA-\  which  contribute  to  an  imperfect  knowledge 
of  their  own  country  by  a  majority  of  Britons, 
is  that  which  pictures  Lakeland  as  always  crowded 
with  tourists.  Let  any  one  who  imagines  such  vain 
things  drop  down  upon  UUswater  or  Buttermere 
between  Easter  and  mid-July,  or  to  be  quite  safe  let 
us  say  in  May  or  June,  which,  by  the  way,  are  the  nicest 
months  for  such  an  enterprise.  I  venture  to  think  he 
would  be  astonished  at  the  almost  perfect  solitude  that 
then  reigns  over  the  land.  I  have  never  been  in  the 
Lake  country  within  reasonable  time  in  August,  and 
never  at  all  at  Easter.  But  the  Easter  invasion  is 
limited  to  a  short  week  as  regards  the  populace  and 
the  well-to-do  business  folk,  while  for  about  three 
more  a  moderate  company  of  persons  mainly  con- 
cerned with  higher  education  scatter  themselves  about 
the  country.  Whitsuntide  is  too  short  to  count.  A 
brief  rush  for  three  or  four  days,  and  then  all  again  is 
peace — except,  alas !  for  one  blighting  innovation  of 
yesterday.  For  one  need  not  be  anything  approach- 
ing a  bigot  in  this  particular  to  express  the  simple  truth 
that  motors  have  been  an  unmitigated  curse  to  Lake- 

245 


CLEAR  WATERS 

land.     Surely  this  small,  compact,  almost  matchless 
region  might  have  been  held  inviolate.     There  is  not 
one  single  argument  that  would  be  urged  by  any 
sane  person   for  their   resounding,   dust-raising,   dis- 
turbing presence  here  at  least,  while  the  objections 
are  so  obvious,  so  many,  and  so  overpowering  as  to 
seem  scarcely  worth  labouring.     They  have  been  for- 
bidden the  Trossachs.     There  is  infinitely  more  cause 
here,  since  the  comfort  of  a  far  greater  number  of 
people  is  concerned.     Surely  the  whole  of  the  rest  of 
Great  Britain  is  a  wide  enough  field  for  these  scorchers. 
Why  the  tortuous  roads  of  this  little  paradise,  along 
which  the  less  robust  loved  to  walk,  or  drive,  or  cycle 
in  sane  leisurely  fashion  should  have  been  turned  into 
a  pandemonium  for  (as  indulged  in  here)  the  senseless 
craze  of  a  comparative  handful  of  well-to-do  people, 
I   cannot  imagine.     Fancy  going  through  the  Lake 
.country  at  twenty  miles   an  hour,  and  that  is   the 
minimum.     It  would  have  been  so  easy  to  draw  a 
cordon    around   Lakeland,   except    of   course  against 
bona   Jide    residents    within    it.     Whose    and    what 
interests  would  have  been  interfered  with  compared 
to  those  which  they  have  driven  from  the  roads,  and 
what  can  be  said  of  those  discordant  strident  shrieks 
which  bellow  through  the  vales  to  the  very  mountain 
tops  from  morning  tiU  night,  except  that  we  are  an 
amazing   people  ?     I  say  nothing  of  the  dust-clouds 
which  on  some  roads — as,  for  instance,  that  beautiful 
one  along  Ullswater — may  be  seen  falling  in  almost 
constant  showers  upon  the  pellucid  waters.     These 
thoughtless  souls  have  assuredly  done  much  to  destroy 
many  deUghtful  features  of  the  quiet  season  in  the 
246 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

Lake  country.  What  they  must  be  in  August  the 
Lord  only  knows  !  There  are  undoubtedly  two  sides 
to  this  question  in  ordinary  districts ;  but  that  there 
is  only  one  to  it  here  seems  to  me  the  simple  truth. 
The  narrow  roads  have  lost  all  their  old  charm,  and 
even  their  very  safety.  The  echoes  of  the  valleys,  till 
lately  awakened  by  nothing  but  harmonious  sounds, 
are  now  tortured  from  morning  till  night  with  hideous 
clamours,  from  which  there  is  scarcely  any  respite. 
Beyond  the  range  of  these  hooters  the  mountains  are, 
to  be  sure,  as  glorious  and  lovely  as  ever.  If  wander- 
ing alone  in  May  or  June  you  chanced  to  break  your 
leg,  say  on  the  Pillar  mountain  over  Ennerdale,  or  on 
Kidsty  Pike  above  Patterdale,  or  a  score  of  other 
places,  it  might  possibly  be  better  that  you  had 
broken  your  neck,  so  uncertain  would  be  the  prospects 
of  mortal  help. 

Almost  no  one  goes  to  Lakeland  to  catch  trout — 
so  few,  indeed,  amid  the  host  of  tourists  as  to  be 
numerically  not  worthy  of  mention.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  however,  in  the  best  fishing  months  there  are  few 
strangers  of  any  kind  actually  staying  in  the  country. 
I  have  been  here  myself  frequently  in  the  last  fifteen 
years  during  the  months  of  May  and  June,  not  in  the 
main  for  such  purpose,  but  nevertheless  a  great  many 
enjoyable  days,  sometimes  fairly  profitable  and  some- 
times otherwise,  are  among  the  memorabilia  of  these 
always  delightful  sojourns.  The  head  of  UUswater, 
for  other  reasons  as  well  as  for  those  more  to  the  pur- 
pose here,  I  may  say  at  once  is  my  favourite  anchor- 
age. There  is  no  more  delectable  spot  in  the  whole 
lake  region  than  Patterdale,  none  better  for  mountain 

247 


CLEAR  WATERS 

walking,  none  further  from  railroads,  none,  but  for 
the  motor  curse,  more  unspoiled.  Nor  are  any  of 
the  other  lakes  to  my  thinking  quite  so  satisfying  as 
UUswater.  It  is,  moreover,  full  of  trout — but  of  this 
with  its  reservations  anon — and,  unlike  the  other 
large  lakes,  there  are  no  other  fish  but  trout  in  its 
cold,  limpid  waters.  Lastly,  there  is  more  fishing 
of  sorts  in  tarns  and  streams  within  a  walk  of  the  lake- 
head  than  in  the  neighbourhood  of  any  other  Lakeland 
centre.  There  is  yet  one  more  reason  why  this  long 
time  I  have  always  made  straight  for  a  certain  hostelry 
on  the  shores  of  UUswater  whenever  I  have  had  two 
or  three  weeks  to  spare  for  this  country.  It  is  not 
merely  because  there  is  meat,  drink,  and  comfort  of 
the  best  all  within  a  modest  angler's  compass,  but 
because  my  landlord  is  a  very  prince  among  landlords, 
and  even  yet  more  that  he  embodies  in  his  own  person 
and  character  the  very  essence  and  spirit  of  all  that 
entwines  this  country  tighter  and  tighter  round  the 
hearts  of  those  who  frequent  it ;  above  all,  for  those 
who  go  there  in  the  quiet  season,  those  glorious 
days  and  nights  of  May  and  June.  I  hope  I  know, 
and,  knowing,  duly  revere  my  Wordsworth.  But  my 
landlord  is  a  better  Lakelander  all  the  same  than 
Wordsworth,  if  the  suggestion  is  not  too  impious. 
He  is  not,  to  be  sure,  a  great  poet,  but  he  is  a  poet  all 
the  same,  like  a  great  many  other  people,  without 
knowing  it.  He  knows  every  hill,  every  bit  of  scree, 
every  glen,  every  ghyll,  tarn,  and  brook,  and  the  name 
of  every  spot  of  earth  that  has  a  name  between 
Shap  and  Borrowdale,  and  could  go  almost  blindfold 
to  every  one  of  them.  He  knows,  I  think,  every 
248 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

mortal  man,  woman,  and  child  within  that  twenty  and 
odd  mile  breadth,  and  all  about  them.  He  knows 
more  about  hounds  and  foxes  than  almost  any  one  in 
the  country  but  the  great  Joe  Bouman,  his  immediate 
neighbour  and  intimate,  who  has  only  just  laid  down 
the  horn  of  the  UUswater  pack  after  thirty  strenuous 
years.  He  knows  all  about  sheep  and  shepherds  and 
collie  dogs — in  short,  there  is  not  a  single  feature  of 
life  in  this  wild  romantic  country  that  my  landlord 
does  not  know  well,  and,  I  may  confidently  add,  does 
not  love.  He  can  tell  local  stories  in  the  racy  Cum- 
brian or  Westmoreland  dialect  almost  inexhaustibly, 
and  the  unsophisticated  townsman  who  thinks  that 
crowds  are  necessary  as  humour-producing  factors 
makes  the  biggest  kind  of  mistake.  It  is  remote  places 
that  breed  originality  and  independence  of  character 
which,  with  a  naturally  racy  people,  make  matter  for 
the  good  raconteur  who  knows  them  well.  And  these 
Celto-Scandinavian  Highlanders  of  the  Lake  country 
have  always  a  waggish  tongue  and  the  keenest  sense 
of  the  funny  side  of  things,  offering  no  little  contrast 
in  this  particular  to  their  Saxon  neighbours  of  North- 
umbria  across  the  Pennines. 

My  landlord  finds  time  for  everything.  He  carves 
at  the  side-tables  while  his  many  nice  daughters  do 
all  the  waiting.  Indeed,  the  hotel  is  quite  a  family 
affair.  In  a  holiday  week,  such  as  Whitsuntide,  when 
the  house  is  full  with  thirty  odd  guests,  it  is  a  great 
sight  to  see  mine  host  on  the  porch  dispatching  the 
various  parties  for  the  day,  one  after  the  other,  deliver- 
ing the  luncheon  packages,  bandying  jokes  with  old 
habitues,   and  giving  minute  directions  as  to  paths 

249 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  tracks  to  new-comers  bound  for  distant  scenes. 
One  man  is  minus  a  stick ;  the  landlord  produces  one 
in  a  moment.     A  lady,  nay  two  or  three,  think  they 
would  like  a  wallet  to  carry  their  etceteras  in  ;   these 
are  produced  ready  washed  and  clean  on  the  spot.     An 
absent-minded  soul  has  left  his  waterproof  at  home ; 
even  for  that  a  substitute  is  sure  to  be  forthcoming. 
As  mine  host  turns  indoors,  having  got  most  of  his 
guests  safely  away  till  tea-time,  though  there  is  always  a 
hot  lunch  for  the  stay-at-homes,  he  unfolds  a  crumpled 
telegram   just    received    and    announces    in    a    quite 
cheery  tone  that  seventy  knights  of  Pythias  or  eighty 
Oddfellows  from  Preston  expect  dinner  at  one  o'clock. 
And  at  that  hour,  if  you  are  about,  you  will  find  him 
in  a  hall  built  for  the  purpose,  with  his  daughters  in 
the  thick  of  the  steaming  fray  and  in  his  shirt  sleeves, 
slashing  away  at  rounds  of  beef  and  legs  of  mutton, 
just  as  if  he  had  merely  to  send  round  to  the  butcher's 
for  them  instead  of  being  fifteen  miles  from  anywhere 
— ^handing  plates,  giving  directions,  and  armed  with 
a  ready  retort  for  the  most  waggish  knight  among 
them.     When  the  hotel  guests  collect  again  at  after- 
noon tea-time,  there  is  no  sign  that  our  landlord  or 
his  family  have  even  seen  a  knight  of  Pythias  or  an 
Oddfellow,  much  less  been  in  the  very  vortex  of  eighty 
uproarious   and  hungry  ones.     Everything  goes  like 
clock-work.     Howsoever  late  at  night  we  may  keep 
our  host  up  in  the  smoking-room  telling  stories  of 
foxes,  hounds,  and  dalesmen,  I  am  pretty  sure  to  see 
him  from  my  bedroom  window  in  the  morning  work- 
ing with  skill  and  knowledge  among  his  flower-beds, 
or  even  cutting  the  lawn — dewy  as  it  always  is  with  the 
250 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

spray  from  the  beck  that  roars  beside  it  into  the  lake 
beyond.  And  in  quiet  times,  when  there  are  only 
half  a  dozen  guests  in  this  or  even  in  the  large  hotels, 
my  landlord  is  ready  for  anything.  He  will  row  you 
on  the  lake  while  you  woo  the  rather  elusive  trout  of 
Ullswater,  or  tramp  to  a  distant  tarn  and  paddle  you 
there  if  there  is  a  boat  on  it,  or  take  a  long  day's  walk 
over  Kidsty  and  the  High  Street  to  Mardale,  lunch 
at  the  Black  Bull  and  back  to  dinner,  and  what  better 
could  one  desire  than  a  companion  to  whom  the  whole 
country  from  the  smallest  wild-flower  to  the  rudest 
dalesman  is  an  open  book ! 

I  sometimes  think  I  should  like  to  write  a  tract  en- 
titled *  Advice  to  country  hotel-keepers.'  They  could 
make  so  much  more  of  themselves  with  so  very  little 
trouble.  But  perhaps  the  genus  are  born  not  made. 
My  landlord  was  born  to  shine,  though  so  far  from 
being  bred  to  the  calling,  he  didn't  take  to  it  till 
middle  age,  though  he  had  in  some  respects  a  still 
better  preparation.  But  to  imagine  that  a  homily 
could  convert  the  average  Boniface  to  his  like  is  a  vain 
thought,  for  there  are  none  like  him  for  this  kind  of 
place — no,  not  one  within  my  knowledge,  and  I  have 
had  a  tolerable  experience.  The  only  fly  in  the  oint- 
ment beneath  his  roof  is  the  temptation  to  over-eat 
oneself. 

The  trout  of  Ullswater  are  something  of  a  mystery 
even  to  their  intimates.  The  whole  lake  with  its 
winding  length  of  nearly  nine  miles  is  full  of  them. 
Nor  are  there  any  coarse  fish,  but  some  baby  perch. 
The  trout  are  smaller  than  those  of  Windermere  and 
Derwentwater,  and  only  average  about  three  to  the 


CLEAR  WATERS 

pound.  Ullswater  has  more  the  qualities  of  a  huge 
mountain  tarn.  There  are  few  or  no  reeds  in  it,  and 
there  is  no  mud.  It  is  rock-bound  and  rock-bottomed, 
and  crystal-clear.  And  yet  with  aU  this,  for  some 
reason  that  no  one  has  really  fathomed,  its  trout  are 
rather  indifferent  risers,  that  is  to  say,  at  civilised 
hours,  for  they  are  very  free  risers  through  the  summer 
nights  when,  from  ten  on  till  five  or  so  in  the  morning, 
they  come  close  into  the  shores  to  feed.  It  is  all 
open  water,  and  no  such  stretch  of  open  trouting  water 
in  all  England  is  so  little  fished.  That  I  am  quite 
sure  of.  Considering  its  immense  size  you  may  fairly 
say  it  is  scarcely  touched.  Yet  in  May,  sometimes  a 
little  before  that,  a  couple  of  good  rods  may  on  a  good 
day  kill  thirty  to  forty  sizeable  fish.  One  of  the  few 
May  days  I  ever  fished  it  seriously  was  with  a  friend 
now  dead,  a  very  keen  angler  who  frequented  the  lake 
a  good  deal.  We  had  about  twenty-five,  and  I  was 
lucky  enough  to  get  one  over  a  pound  off  the  mouth 
of  the  Aira  beck,  a  rather  unusual  occurrence.  During 
one  June  again  I  paddled  about  a  good  deal  by  myself 
in  and  out  of  the  bays  on  the  upper  half  of  the  lake, 
and  always  picked  up  a  few  fish  in  a  desultory  way. 
Three  in  succession,  I  remember,  one  late  afternoon 
weighed  two  pounds  between  them,  which  was  the 
best  bit  of  luck  as  regards  weight  in  a  brief  time  I  ever 
had  there.  It  is  rather  interesting  though  having  a 
whole  big  lake  to  yourself,  and  this  is  what  it  practically 
amounts  to.  One  learns  by  degrees  the  places  where 
a  fish  may  be  expected,  though  it  isn't  from  paucity 
of  numbers  that  one's  expectations  and  gleanings  are 
so  modest,  nor  can  one  credit  an  over  supply  of  bottom 
252 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

food  with  these  caprices.  There  is,  in  short,  something 
altogether  pecuHar  about  the  lake.  Some  of  those 
best  qualified  to  speak  declare  that  a  large  proportion 
of  the  Ullswater  trout  are  solely  *  night  risers,'  not 
evening  and  sunset  risers,  but  through  the  dark  hours 
of  midnight  and  early  dawn.  This  is  not  a  high  form 
of  sport,  fishing  at  short  range  entirely  by  feel  and 
seeing  nothing.  I  have  known  well  for  years  the  only 
regular  fly  fishers  on  the  upper  half  of  Ullswater. 
They  are  hard-working  men  as  well  as  keen  sportsmen, 
and  can  be  more  than  counted  on  the  fingers  of  one 
hand ;  for  I  do  not  reckon  the  few  odd  rustics  who 
come  down  after  working  hours  and  sit  with  a  bait  at 
a  beck  mouth  for  an  hour  or  two  with  generally  small 
results.  I  have  constantly  seen  the  baskets  of  these 
two  or  three  experts  who  fly  fish  through  the  night,  and 
they  often  weigh  from  eight  to  ten  pounds.  And  the 
Ullswater  trout,  though  not  large,  are  clean  and  hand- 
some and  strong  fighters,  as  they  should  be  out  of 
such  waters.  The  lake  in  the  upper  part  is  extremely 
deep.  The  trout  lie  mainly  in  the  shallow  shelving 
bays  or  in  rocky  coves  where  crags  tufted  with  blae- 
berries and  feathered  with  pine  or  birch  drop  sheer 
into  deep  waters.  These  last,  with  the  exception  of 
the  famous  promontory  of  Styborough,  are  mainly, 
however,  on  the  eastern  shore,  from  which  the  rugged 
slopes  of  Place  Fell  rise  wild  and  steep  for  a  couple 
of  thousand  feet.  On  the  other,  the  Helvellyn  side, 
the  foot-hill  pastures  of  Glencoin  and  Gowbarrow 
sweep  along  the  lake  shore  in  graceful  curves,  with 
projecting  bars  of  silvery  sand  or  broken  rocky  ledges, 
or  mossy  rims  where  daffodils  and  blue-bells  in  their 

253 


CLEAR  WATERS 

respective  seasons  blaze  beneath  the  trunks  of  great 
forest  trees.  Here,  drifting  along  from  bay  to  bay  as 
near  as  may  be  to  the  line  where  the  visible  bottom 
shelves  into  deeper  water,  the  angler  in  the  month 
of  May,  as  I  have  said,  taking  things  more  seriously, 
will  shape  his  course  with  fair  prospects  of  success. 
How  delightful  all  this  is,  too,  when  summer  is  just 
dawning  with  its  sweet  odours  and  balmy  zephyrs, 
breathing  in  gentle  ripples  along  the  surface  of  the 
lake,  while  the  cuckoo  calls  from  the  shore. 

I  do  not  think — not  forgetting  its  recognised  rival, 
the  prospect  from  Derwentwater  looking  up  to  Borrow- 
dale — that  there  is  anything  in  Lakeland  quite  equal 
to  the  head  of  UUswater  as  viewed,  let  us  say,  from 
off  Glencoin :  the  fringing  foliage,  the  far-climbing 
bracken  steeps,  the  rock-breasted  summit  of  Place  Fell 
filling  the  sky  upon  the  one  side,  and  upon  the  other 
those  gracious  intervals  of  wood  and  meadowland 
behind  which  upsprings  the  great  Helvellyn  group. 
The  consummation  of  the  picture,  however,  is  the  mass 
of  piled-up  mountains  beyond  the  head  of  the  lake 
which  fills  in  its  background — that  fine  procession  of 
peaks  and  broken  summits  which  sweeps  round  from 
Fairfield  to  the  High  Street  over  whose  lowest  gap  you 
can  mark  the  white  trail  of  the  road  that  climbs  the 
famous  Kirkstone  pass.  How  absolutely  peaceful,  and 
only  yesterday,  alas  !  how  conscious  of  its  real  seclusion 
from  a  noisy  world  used  this  queen  of  English  lakes 
to  seem  in  those  May  and  June  days  :  the  call  of  the 
cuckoo,  the  faint  click  of  a  horse  upon  the  shore  road, 
the  clamour  of  many  sheep  gathered  from  the  hills 
for  some  dipping  or  shearing  ceremony,  the  chorus 

254 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

of  bird  song  from  the  woods,  the  distant  roar  of  Aira 
force  that 

With  torrent  hoarse 
Breaks  from  its  woody  glen. 

Alas !  what  would  Wordsworth  say  to  the  dreadful 
discords  that  with  strident  uproar  shatter  these  gentle 
harmonies  of  spring,  and  make  the  mountains  groan 
in  prolonged  agony  ?  But  enough  of  this.  *  We  have 
come  to  stay^  '  We  have  come  to  stay,''  bellows  the 
defiant  scorcher,  a  sort  of  triumphant  paean,  as  if  it 
were  a  positive  merit  to  make  a  race-track  of  the 
shores  of  Ullswater  and  a  pandemonium  of  its  en- 
circling mountains.  But  what  the  deuce  do  Words- 
worth or  the  eloquent  peace  of  Ullswater  matter  ? 
Mighty  little  to  any  one,  I  should  think,  at  twenty- 
five  miles  an  hour.  And  all  this  could  have  been 
so  easily  averted  from  this  tiny  and  precious  fragment 
of  England. 

In  later  June  it  is  perhaps  as  pleasant  and  more 
profitable  to  paddle  in  and  out  along  the  eastern  shore 
and  throw  your  fly  within  a  yard  or  two  of  the  steep 
face  of  the  crags,  where  they  drop  sharply  into  deep 
water,  or  behind  submerged  rocks  that  here  and  there 
lie  about  their  feet ;  for  the  grubs  will  probably  be 
then  falling  from  the  stunted  oak  or  rowan  trees 
overhead  that  find  a  hard  living  in  the  clefts  of  the 
rock.  Discarding  the  three  flies  of  May — the  Broughton 
point,  Greenwell,  and  black  hackle  with  silver  twist — 
and  with  a  red  spinner,  or  a  small  woodcock  and 
orange,  for  a  drop,  and  some  hackle-fly,  palmer,  or 
grouse  for  a  leader,  I  have  sometimes  fished  the  latter 
by  letting  it  strike  the  cliff  gently  near  the  water-line, 


CLEAR  WATERS 

and  thence  drop  quietly  on  to  the  surface.  For  it  is 
surprising  how  close  a  feeding  fish  will  sometimes  hug 
the  sheer  cliff,  and  this  mode  of  offering  him  the  fly- 
has  often  proved  a  seductive  one. 

There  is  a  small  lead  mine  a  mile  or  so  up  the  Glen- 
ridding  beck,  mercifully  the  only  eyesore  of  the  kind 
in  the  whole  district.  It  is  of  very  old  standing, 
and  employs  some  fifty  men.  These  miners,  how- 
ever, are  not  as  other  miners — the  men  of  Glamor- 
gan, Lanark,  and  Midlothian,  for  instance,  whose 
truculent  and  predatory  raids  are  the  terror  of  all 
decent  fishermen.  They  are  dalesmen  mainly,  real 
countrymen,  often  bred  and  born  on  the  lake  shore, 
pleasant  and  civil-spoken  friendly  fellows,  and  thorough 
sportsmen.  A  handful  of  them  are  fly  fishers,  though 
others  worm  the  becks  in  high  water  or  stand  over  a 
baited  hook  on  the  lake  shore  at  evening  after  the 
manner  previously  alluded  to  ;  but  both  sorts  are 
keen  fishermen. 

The  Glenridding  beck  pours  and  has  poured  into 
the  lakehead  for  two  or  three  generations  quite  a 
lusty  torrent  of  water,  always  of  a  thick  milky  colour 
from  the  lead  hush.  Deadly  to  the  trout,  one  would 
be  inclined  to  say  ?  but  not  a  bit  of  it !  On  the 
contrary,  its  mouth  is  a  favourite  feeding-place  of 
fish,  and  the  gravelly  stretch  about  it  that  has  been 
formed  in  the  course  of  years  is  the  favourite  haunt 
of  the  stationary  bait-fisher.  Nor  does  the  beck 
discolour  the  lake  one  atom.  A  hundred  yards  out 
almost  every  trace  of  taint  has  gone,  the  colouring 
matter  no  doubt  sunk  to  the  bottom.  And  this 
gravelly  shore,  where  the  beck  comes  in,  is  a  fitting 
256 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

spot  to  say  a  passing  word  on  the  bustard — ^not  that 

extinct    denizen   of   Salisbury   Plain   and   elsewhere, 

which  will,  no  doubt,  at  once  occur  to  the  reader, 

but  another  variety,   to  ignore  which  would  be  to 

leave   the   angling   literature   of  Ullswater   but   half 

told.     This  same  bustard  is  of  a  truth  a  fearsome 

thing.     I   have   carried  a   specimen   in   my  fly-book 

for  years  merely  to  exhibit  to  all  and  sundry  as  a 

contraption  that  fish  rather  hard  to  catch  with  fine 

tackle  and  well-made  flies  in  the  daylight  will  take 

readily  under  the  moon  and  stars.     The  dimensions 

are  those  of  a  fair-sized  salmon  fly,  but  the  make-up, 

I  am  quite  sure,  would  frighten  even  a  Labrador  or 

Icelandic  salmon  out  of  its  life,  though  ridiculously 

simple  and  primitive — to  wit,  a  thick  body  of  yellow 

worsted  and  a  turkey  wing.     With  this  monstrosity, 

hurled  from  a  long,  stiff  rod,  the  few  local  professors 

catch  Ullswater  trout  freely  in  the  dark  hours.     I 

ought,  of  course,  to  have  fished  a  bustard  myself,  or 

at  least  to  have  spent  a  night  on  the  lake,  or  rather,  on 

its  shores,  for  a  boat  is  then  superfluous.     I  am  not 

unenterprising,  but  I  admit  with  shame  that  I  have 

only  once  succeeded  in  bracing  myself  to  turn  out  at 

ten  o'clock  with  a  prospect  of  returning  at  five ;   and 

on  that  occasion,  having  been  all  my  life,  ever  since 

my  memorable  fifteenth  year,  an  unlucky  fishermen 

as  regards  the  sport  of  adverse  circumstances,  a  quite 

unexpected  night-frost  fell  upon  us,  which  is  fatal.     I 

cannot  therefore  attempt  an  explanation  of  the  bustard 

mystery.     That  these  quarter-  and  half-pounders  take 

it  freely  at  night  is,  however,  a  simple  fact.     I  will 

only  say  that  I  leave  it  at  that.     If  the  reader  could 

R  257 


CLEAR  WATERS 

see  a  bustard,  he  would  understand  why  there  was 
nothing  more  to  be  said. 

I  shall  never  forget,  however,  that  June  midnight 
of  my  sole  endeavour,  moonless  as  it  was,  for  the  glory 
of  its  starlight  effects  upon  the  glassy  lake.  We  were 
only  on  our  way  by  boat  to  the  proposed  fishing- 
ground,  a  sandy  bay  some  four  miles  off  towards 
Howtown,  when  our  hopes  were  dashed.  But  as 
we  drifted  despondently  under  my  favourite  crags 
of  the  daytime,  I  thought  I  would  try  under  them, 
and  as  a  matter  of  fact  I  did  there  get  a  brace  of  fish. 
But  the  reflection  of  those  rich-coloured  cliffs  shed 
upon  the  water  by  the  light  of  the  stars  alone  was  so 
brilliant,  so  iridescent,  so  realistic  that  the  surface 
of  the  water  which  lay  against  them  ceased,  as  such, 
to  exist.  As  I  cast  my  flies  at  the  base  of  the  crags, 
there  was  not  the  faintest  indication  where  the  glow- 
ing reality  ended  and  its  reflected  vision  began.  I 
have  never  seen  the  like,  doubtless  because  I  have 
seldom  fished  on  starlight  nights  in  such  romantic 
spots. 

Some  mention,  too,  must  be  made  of  the  *  great 
grey  trout '  of  Ullswater.  There  is  some  tradition  of 
them  from  old  monkish  times,  but  no  very  big  trout, 
so  far  as  I  know,  are  ever  caught  nowadays.  Neither 
my  expert  local  friends  nor  my  landlord  have  ever  seen 
one,  and  it  is  needless  to  say  more.  But  oddly  enough, 
as  a  mere  visitor,  I  have  had  that  privilege,  and  at  very 
close  quarters  too,  which  may  be  accounted  perhaps 
as  a  set  off  against  my  otherwise  malignant  star.  And 
the  odd  thing  was  that  I  was  standing  at  the  time  in 
a  public  and  frequented  place — in  short,  just  where  the 
258 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

high  road  takes  a  brief  leave  of  the  lake  and  is  blasted 
through  the  neck  of  Styborough  crag.  The  fish  was 
feeding  and  nosing  about  in  the  clear  shallow  water 
close  to  the  shore,  and  being  lifted  well  above  him 
I  was  able  to  watch  him  for  two  or  three  minutes  at 
my  leisure,  to  see  the  spots  on  him  and  to  assure  my- 
self that  he  was  at  least  five  pounds. 

All  I  have  said  about  UUswater  trout  relates  mainly 
to  the  upper  half  of  the  lake,  though  as  a  matter  of 
fact  it  is  applicable  to  the  rest  of  it — that  portion, 
namely,  from  Howtown  to  Pooley  bridge,  where  the 
Eamont  flows  out.  A  few  odd  fishermen  do  come  to 
Howtown  in  April  and  May,  and  there  are  two  or  three 
well-known  anglers  in  the  country  about  Penrith  who 
come  up  for  an  occasional  day.  As  a  matter  of  fact  I 
cannot  recall  ever  having  seen  another  boat  out  fishing 
with  visitors  in  it  beyond  that  of  myself  or  my 
party.  Yet  here  is  a  lake  nine  miles  long,  and  beyond 
any  doubt  full  of  trout,  that  can  be  fished  for  nothing 
but  the  very  moderate  hire  of  a  boat !  One  constantly 
reads  and  hears  complaints  regarding  the  difficulty 
of  getting  fair  fishing  reasonably  accessible.  People 
living  in  London  and  the  non-trouting  counties  are 
continually  uttering  these  plaints,  and  no  doubt  for 
the  detached  individual  with  no  ties  in  the  troutful 
regions  and  possessed  of  the  average  topographical 
vagueness  regarding  his  native  land,  it  does  appear 
something  of  a  problem.  Moreover,  '  the  man  who 
knows  *  is  traditionally  reticent  on  the  subject  for 
obvious  reasons.  I  make  no  claim  to  complete  im- 
munity from  that  merely  human  weakness  myself. 
But  rather  exceptional  circumstances  not  immediately 

259 


CLEAR  WATERS 

concerned  with  fishing,  combined  with  the  fact  of 
being  also  an  angler,  have  given  me  rather  unusual 
opportunities  for  spying  out  the  land.  Being  one  of 
those,  moreover — not  many  I  take  it — who  believe  that 
fair  fishing  has  practically  no  ill  effect  on  a  trout 
stream,  I  do  not  think  I  have  been  on  the  whole 
very  selfish,  though  one  often  feels  morally  pledged 
to  one's  fishing  friends  who  think  otherwise,  and  still 
more  to  those  who  give  one  facilities. 

Really  good  trouting  no  doubt  is  not  easily  attain- 
able by  the  southerner  or  midlander  of  the  type  alluded 
to.  It  is  to  some  extent  a  matter  of  purse,  and  perhaps 
even  a  well-furnished  one  does  not  always  procure  it ; 
for  the  matter  is  further  involved  by  the  fact  that,  rich 
or  poor,  the  great  mass  of  what  may  be  called  immured 
or  land-locked  trout-fishers  are  practically  limited  to 
the  holiday  seasons  either  by  serious  occupations  or 
by  the  distractions  of  a  gregarious  age.  And  again, 
it  is  risky  to  send  a  friend  anywhere  at  Easter,  or  let 
us  say  in  April.  Winter  in  the  hill  countries  is  apt 
to  outstay  its  welcome,  and  such  is  the  logic  of  many 
otherwise  sane  people  that  you  may  be  secretly  held 
responsible  for  the  weather  as  well  as  openly  for  the 
measure  of  sport  obtained.  For  myself,  I  am  always 
possessed  of  an  instinctive  and  genuine  desire  to  put 
not  merely  my  friends,  which  goes  without  saying,  but 
even  general  acquaintances  in  the  way,  so  far  as  I  can, 
of  trout  and  all  pertaining  to  them.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  risk  of  estranging  a  friend  or  even  a  valued 
acquaintance  for  life  must  be  taken  into  consideration. 
It  is  not  a  bad  idea  to  put  your  recommendation  in 
writing,  to  disclaim  formally  any  responsibility  for 
260 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

the  weather,  to  discount  in  detail  the  mishaps  that 
may  arise,  and  then  to  keep  a  copy.  Seriously  though, 
who  would  dare  to  send  any  one  after  brown  trout  in 
August,  unless  perhaps  to  the  Highlands  or  the  west  of 
Ireland,  and  knowing  neither  I  am  spared  the  temp- 
tation. I  know  plenty  of  places,  however,  short  of 
those  remoter  Celtic  fringes,  whither  I  would  go  myself 
quite  hopefully,  uniting  of  course  with  my  anticipa- 
tions a  prayer  for  rain  (a  brutal  procedure),  answered 
only  too  frequently  for  the  poor  public.  But  the 
English  lakes  is  not,  to  my  mind,  from  any  point  of 
view,  an  August  country.  Yet  there  is  abundance  of 
what  may  be  called  second-class  fishing,  easily  available 
throughout  the  country,  though  I  deplore  the  applica- 
tion of  such  commercially  suggestive  methods  of 
appraisement.  These  things  depend  on  the  angler's 
point  of  view :  whether  for  one  thing  he  is  by  tem- 
perament incapable  of  looking  for  anything  but  the 
weight  of  a  basket !  I  do  not  think  there  are  many 
trout  fishermen  built  that  way,  but  there  are  a  few, 
and  upon  the  whole  I  am  sorry  for  them.  A  man  sees 
just  so  much  as  he  is  qualified  to  see  and  no  more, 
a  great  writer  has  said,  in  discussing  the  diverse  nature 
of  the  appeals  made  to  diverse  individuals  by  a  country- 
side and  all  therein  implied.  A  certain  school  of 
south  country  fishermen  used  to  thunder  against  the 
bare  notion  of  the  call  of  the  wild  or  any  of  the  ex- 
traneous joys  that  to  so  many  of  us  are  simply  an 
inseparable  part  and  parcel  of  angling.  We  were 
accounted  mere  irresponsible  wanderers  and  prowlers, 
enjoying  ourselves  perhaps  in  our  strange  way  but 
not  fishermen  at  all.     A  true  disciple,  I  have  seen  it 

261 


CLEAR  WATERS 

argued,  in  effect  should  be  without  susceptibility  to 
any  of  nature's  accessories.  He  should  be  quite  in- 
different to  *  atmosphere,'  and  assuredly  have  no 
poetry  in  his  soul.  He  should  have  no  thought,  no 
eyes  for  anything  beyond  the  exact  science  of  the  job 
he  was  out  for,  and  the  surface  of  the  river.  He  should, 
in  short,  be  able  thoroughly  to  convince  himself  that 
he  is  as  happy  fishing  all  day  between  a  gasometer  and 
a  paper  mill  as  among  the  Cheviots  or  the  Welsh 
mountains.  Nay,  more  so,  for  here  no  possible  out- 
side distractions  can  disturb  the  dry  purity  of  his 
aim.  His  musings  must  on  no  account  stray  beyond 
the  trout  he  is  after,  or  the  insect  life  which  is  the 
medium  of  its  ensnaring.  Only  the  visible  trout  is 
lawful  prey,  and  in  the  inevitable  intervals  when  no 
rise  is  on  his  thoughts  must  be  steadily  concentrated 
on  the  mysteries  of  sub-imagos,  Ephemeridse,  Trichop- 
tera,  Perlidae,  Sialidae,  Notonectidae,  and  the  rest  of 
the  paralysing  glossary  in  which  the  purist  seems  posi- 
tively to  revel.  Some  of  them  are  common  enough 
things,  but  infinitely  glorified  by  these  tremendous 
names  before  which  the  ordinary  angler,  crushed  and 
mystified,  hides  his  head  in  self-abasement  and  hurries 
away  to  breathe  again  the  freer  air  of  the  mountain 
and  the  wild.  Here  in  time  he  may  recover  his  self- 
esteem  and  get  back  to  the  plain  fact  that  there  are 
thousands  upon  thousands  of  lifelong  trout-fishers  and 
hundreds  of  the  most  accomplished  ones  to  whom 
these  things  are  so  much  Sanskrit,  and  doubtless  always 
will  be  until  trout  and  time  shall  be  no  more.  He 
consoles  himself  also  with  the  reflection  that  the 
Httle  kingdom  held  in  bondage  by  this  portentous 
262 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

glossary,  and  this  exclusiveness  of  diction  and  method, 
is  geographically  but  a  tiny  fragment  of  the  angling 
map  of  Britain,  its  water  mileage  insignificant,  and  its 
subjects  numerically  but  an  unappreciable  fraction  of 
the  great  fraternity.  One  might  feel  perhaps  rather 
sorry  for  the  rank  and  file,  mainly  Londoners,  of  that 
little  kingdom  for  the  long  words  they  must  learn, 
or  at  least  feel  they  ought  to  learn,  and  for  the  general 
air  of  solemnity  which  must  cloud  their  graduating 
years  ;  though,  as  a  late  famous  angler  who  repre- 
sented the  craft  on  the  Times  once  wrote,  *  What 
these  things  have  to  do  with  plain  fishing  no  mortal 
man  can  tell.' 

It  is  amusing  to  read  occasional  papers  on  trouting 
in  the  non-sporting  press  by  writers  who  are  uncon- 
sciously in  the  bondage  of  the  school,  and  the  con- 
descending and  delicious  naivete  of  their  allusions  to 
wet-fly  fishing  and  their  quaint  sense  of  the  pro- 
portion of  things.  But  how  should  they  know  ? 
They  are  no  doubt  hard  working  and  often  clever 
young  men — more  power  to  them ! — being  for  that  very 
reason  kept  close  to  the  journalistic  mill  and  have  not 
the  dimmest  notion  how  the  angling  world  wags  in 
Northumberland  or  Brecon,  in  Yorkshire  or  Devon. 
Oddly  enough,  the  best  dry-fly  fisherman  I  ever  knew 
— one  of  the  best,  it  was  always  held  in  Wiltshire — and 
whose  occasional  inroads  in  quite  youth  upon  the  very 
driest  and  purest  portion  of  the  Itchen  astonished  its 
champions,  knew  nothing  of  the  glossary.  I  ought 
to  know,  as  he  is  a  very  old  friend  of  mine,  in  addition 
to  which  I  have  frequently  fished  his  own  water  with 
him  to  my  very  great  edification.     My  recollection  is 

263 


CLEAR  WATERS 

that  his  entomology  was  as  simple  and  concentrated 
as  it  proved  effective.  And  as  I  always  took  care  to 
use  the  same  flies  as  he  did,  this  impression  is  no  doubt 
a  sound  one. 

But  to  return  to  Ullswater ;  if  there  were  only  the 
lake  to  fish  in  the  rod  would  occupy  a  much  less 
prominent  place  in  my  memories  of  past  visits,  and 
in  my  dreams  of,  I  trust,  more  to  come.  Many  good- 
sized  becks  run  into  the  lake,  invaluable  as  spawning- 
grounds  for  the  latter,  but  poor  in  themselves  in 
regard  both  to  the  number  and  size  of  their  fish ; 
the  lovely  little  river  Goldrill  which  descends  from 
the  Kirkstone  pass  through  Brotherswater,  and 
thence  in  glittering  coils  down  the  green  trough  of 
Patterdale,  taking  the  first  place  in  volume.  Then 
there  are  the  Grisedale  and  Aira  becks,  the  latter  the 
best  of  all  in  its  higher  waters  above  the  famous  falls. 
Then  there  are  the  considerable  becks  which,  rising 
in  the  High  Street,  run  down  through  the  various 
dales  of  Martindale  deer  forest  to  Howtown  Bay. 
These  are  greatly  used  as  spawning-grounds  by  the  lake 
trout,  who  run  up  them  by  thousands  in  the  autumn. 
For  themselves  they  carried  and  probably  still  carry 
the  usual  stock  of  eight-to-the-pounders.  The  best 
native  fisherman  at  Howtown  tells  me  he  has  not  killed 
a  trout  of  a  pound  weight  in  any  of  them  in  forty-five 
years !  Nor  from  the  nature  of  them  and  their  lack 
of  food  could  anything  else  be  expected.  But  in  the 
summer-time  the  mountain  tarns  are,  to  me  at  any 
rate,  infinitely  more  attractive.  Cceteris  paribus,  I 
would  sooner  fish  a  stream  than  a  lake  any  day.  But 
I  would  much  sooner  fish  a  lake  two  thousand  feet 

264 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

up  in  the  mountains  for  half-pounders  than  a  beck, 
even  if  there  is  good  water,  for  six-or-eight-to-the- 
pounders  at  less  than  half  the  altitude.  Indeed,  with 
a  congenial  companion,  if  possible,  there  are  few  things 
to  me  more  thoroughly  enjoyable  than  a  June  day  on 
a  mountain  tarn.  But  you  must  not  take  it  too 
seriously  from  a  merely  fishing  point  of  view,  for  tarns 
are  queer  things,  though  always  interesting.  Some 
writers  have  a  habit  of  alluding  to  them  airily  and 
with  a  touch  of  contempt,  as  if  they  were  mere  places 
for  schoolboys  to  fill  baskets  in.  There  may  be  such 
tarns  in  the  Highlands  of  Scotland  or  in  the  west 
of  Ireland,  but  except  an  occasional  one  that  nature 
has  overstocked  with  hungry  fingerlings,  such  is  not 
my  experience  in  other  parts  of  the  country,  though 
I  do  not  claim  a  particularly  wide  one  in  this  respect. 
All  those  I  know,  whether  they  are  a  mile  or  two 
hundred  yards  in  length,  are  extraordinarily  capri- 
cious, and  any  one  who  fills  his  basket,  by  fair  daylight 
fishing  at  any  rate,  may  write  it  down  as  one  of  his 
red-letter  days.  There  is  one  tarn,  to  be  sure,  or 
rather  a  lake,  for  it  is  nearly  three  miles  long,  though 
very  narrow,  in  this  neighbourhood  where  you  would 
generally,  I  think,  under  reasonable  conditions,  fill 
a  basket  with  quarter-pounders,  and  that  is  Hawes- 
water,  an  outlying  preserve  on  the  Lowther  Castle 
property.  But  this  is  not  because  it  is  preserved, 
but  because  the  fish  are  by  nature  remarkably  free 
risers.  It  is  notoriously  overstocked,  and  the  fish  are 
too  small,  but  not  despicably  so,  and,  moreover, 
run  curiously  even-sized.  Even  that  deep-water, 
bottom-feeding,  non-rising  delicacy,  the  char,  which 

265 


CLEAR  WATERS 

inhabits  Haweswater,  among  other  lakes,  must  catch 
something  of  the  frolicsome  temperament  of  its 
cousins ;  for  on  my  only  day  there,  when  I  did  fill 
my  basket,  I  hooked  one,  and  was  disappointed  at 
not  landing  it.  I  remember  well,  as  it  leaped  out  of 
the  water  with  its  red  and  gold  colouring,  an  instan- 
taneous flash  of  memory  carried  me  back  over  the  long 
years  to  the  trout  streams  of  the  Alleghanies.  This 
is  merely  worthy  of  remark  on  account  of  an  ancient 
controversy  whether  the  American  brook-trout  is  or 
is  not  a  species  of  char.  I  had  never  before  seen  one 
except  in  that  potted  condition  familiar  to  all  Lake- 
landers,  and  did  not  know  at  the  time  that  Hawes- 
water contained  any,  and  American  trouting  was 
assuredly  miles  from  my  thoughts  at  the  moment. 
Why  Haweswater  should  be  the  complete  antithesis 
in  this  matter  of  free  rising  of  its  great  neighbour 
Ullswater  in  almost  the  next  valley,  who  shall  say  ? 
Why,  again,  the  fish  should  rise  less  freely  in  the  smaller 
higher  lakes  that  lie  between  them  is  another  problem. 
Of  these  last  I  never  fail  to  devote  two  or  three 
days  to  Angle  tarn  and  Hayeswater.  They  are  curi- 
ously different  in  all  respects  save  that  of  a  common 
solitude,  though  but  a  mile  apart.  Angle  tarn  lies 
in  a  shallow  shelf,  high  up  near  the  top  of  rolling  fells. 
It  is  a  broken,  angular  square,  covering  some  twenty 
acres,  peat  coloured  and  not  very  deep.  Its  sides  are 
low  cliffs  or  boggy  flats,  and  its  trout,  running  nearly 
three  to  the  pound,  though  dark  coloured  and  a  trifle 
soft  on  the  table,  fight  like  tigers.  The  near  sur- 
roundings of  the  actual  cup  in  which  the  lake  lies  do 
not,  as  here  bluntly  set  down,  sound  inspiring.  But 
266 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

then  its  position  is  very  much  so,  lying  as  it  were  in  a 
shelf  looking  right  over  Patterdale  and  the  great 
Helvellyn  range.  For,  as  you  stand  upon  the  farther 
edge  of  the  lake,  you  see  rising  above  its  low,  craggy 
shores,  the  intervening  distance  being  obliterated, 
the  shadowy  peaks  of  Catchedicam,  of  Helvellyn,  of 
Fairfield,  and  other  heights,  soaring  nobly  into  the 
sky,  looking  not  their  modest  three  thousand  feet  or 
so,  but  after  the  manner  of  all  our  British  mountains 
in  our  much  abused,  but  for  scenic  purposes  match- 
less climate,  at  least  twice  that  altitude.  I  know  no 
mountain  tarn  anywhere  that  provides  of  itself  so 
strange  a  stage  behind  which  is  hung  like  a  curtain 
against  the  sky  this  imposing  background  of  mountain 
peaks.  There  is,  in  short,  nothing  to  be  seen  beyond 
the  brown,  ruffled  waters  of  the  little  lake — for  if  they 
are  not  ruffled  the  ostensible  object  of  your  day  is  as 
nought — but  the  summits  of  the  Helvellyn  range. 
The  composition  of  the  picture  is  rare  and  extra- 
ordinarily effective.  This  is  assuredly  a  nook  wherein 
to  spend  a  happy  day  with  its  interludes  of  repose  and 
activity,  for  it  is  quite  certain,  however  propitious  the 
weather,  that  the  fish  will  encourage  you  to  periods  of 
contemplation,  provided  of  course  you  are  possessed 
of  due  discernments  and  are  not  a  neophyte  in  the  first 
burst  of  undiscerning  youth.  Nor  are  these  restful 
periods  with  a  congenial  spirit  to  share  them  the 
worst  part  of  the  day. 

This  is  not  one  of  your  grisly  and  gruesome  tarns, 
though  I  love  these  others  too,  in  wild  weather,  when 
they  are  at  their  worst — that  is,  at  their  best.  Hayes- 
water  can  be  all  that  to  great  perfection.     But  Angle 

267 


CLEAR  WATERS 

tarn  is  open  and  sunny,  with  all  its  solitude.  The 
plaintive  tweeting  tit-lark  and  the  restless  sandpiper, 
fussy  for  the  safety  of  its  hidden  young,  are  always 
with  you.  Perhaps  a  brood  of  shy  ring-ousels  about 
the  rocky  crown  of  some  higher  knoll  with  raucous 
note  proclaim  their  presence,  or  even  a  stray  grouse 
may  be  flushed  on  your  first  approach.  The  favourite 
mountain  route  from  Patterdale  to  Mardale  over  the 
High  Street  passes  Angle  tarn,  to  be  sure.  But  if 
you  were  to  spend  every  day  of  a  week  up  here, 
even  in  a  hoHday  time,  you  would  understand  how 
comparatively  few  people  nowadays  care  for  mountain 
walking. 

It  is  nearly  a  two-hours'  walk  up  to  Angle  tarn, 
and  the  first  part  of  it  sidles  up  Boredale  hause  looking 
straight  down  upon  Patterdale  with  Ullswater  glimmer- 
ing below,  and  the  silver  thread  of  the  Goldrill  twisting 
for  miles  up  its  narrow  meadowy  carpet  to  where 
Brotherswater  gleams  beneath  the  dark  foot  of  the 
Kirkstone  pass.  What  a  panorama  is  here  as  you 
tramp  up  to  your  fishing  ground,  leisurely,  and  perhaps 
a  little  puffingly,  being  of  necessity  not  long  after 
breakfast,  and  halting  betimes,  for  which  in  truth  there 
is  no  need  to  make  excuse.  Who  that  has  ever  looked 
down  on  Patterdale,  bathed  in  the  sunshine  of  a  fresh 
June  morning,  would  demand  one  ?  Don't  talk  to 
me  of  the  Rocky  Mountains !  I  know  them  and  have 
stayed  among  them,  and^^^-^  SS.  companies,  emigration 
agents,  governor-generals,  special  correspondents,  and 
all  the  rest  of  it,  I  wouldn't  give  a  day  in  Patterdale 
for  a  week  at  Banff.  Indeed,  these  great  Canadian 
mountains  are  at  their  best  from  the  slow  travelling 

268 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

train,  as  the  procession  is  constantly  changing.  They 
do  not  grow  on  you  as  a  fixture  at  close  quarters. 
When  you  have  admired  and  had  your  fill  of  the  savage 
rock-work  above  the  high  timber  line  for  two  or  three 
days,  you  will  probably  have  had  enough.  Practically 
everything  else,  hill,  valley,  mountain-side,  is  smothered 
in  a  monotonous  mantle  of  sombre  evergreen  hung 
upon  miles  and  miles  of  stiff,  straight  poles.  To  me 
this  type  of  woodland,  above  all  in  so  aggressive  and 
all-pervading  a  form,  is  simply  repellent. 

Just  look  carefully,  dear  reader,  at  any  of  those 
magnificent,  large  scale  photographs  of  the  Rockies, 
which  are  exhibited  in  the  windows  of  steamship  com- 
panies and  elsewhere  in  every  city.  Examine  them 
closely  and  you  will  see  what  I  mean.  Beyond  the 
waters  to  which  their  frame  of  pinewood  give  a 
singular  monotony,  there  are  only  two  ingredients, 
bare  rock  and  evergreen  foliage,  unless  after  a  fall 
of  snow.  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  human  interest, 
past  or  present,  attaching  to  this  great  waste  of  rock 
and  pine,  and  you  soon  tire  of  it,  unless,  maybe,  you 
are  after  game  or  unsophisticated  trout.  For  this 
very  reason  the  photographs  of  these  scenes  are  extra- 
ordinarily realistic  even  to  those  who  know  them  well. 
There  is  nothing  subtle  and  comparatively  little  colour 
in  the  hard  originals  to  conceal.  To  visitors  from  the 
prairies  or  Eastern  Canada  who  have  never  seen  any 
other  mountains  and  live  themselves  in  a  new  country, 
and  do  not  know  what  you  and  I,  dear  reader,  denizens 
of  an  ancient  land,  mean  by  '  atmosphere,'  these  scenes 
are  of  course  very  wonderful  and  satisfying  no  doubt 
in   every   respect.     But   the   language   of  eulogy,   in 

269 


CLEAR  WATERS 

which  they  are  customarily  dealt  with,  recognises  no 
qualifications  and  none  of  those  limitations  which  are 
so  painfully  obvious.  If  you  have  inspected  a  large 
photograph  of  Banff,  for  instance,  or  of  Field,  you  will 
not  be  surprised  at  anything  when  you  get  there.  It 
will  be  exactly  what  you  expected.  Every  fissure  in 
every  topmost  crag  you  see  in  the  photograph  you  will 
see  all  day  long  in  the  original  with  equal  clarity, 
unless  it  is  bad  weather.  The  miles  of  sombre  ever- 
green require  no  effort  of  imagination,  and  there 
they  are,  unchanging,  monotonous,  all  day  long  and 
through  every  month,  spring,  summer,  autumn,  and 
winter,  when  the  crags  above  take  on  their  coat  of 
snow.  And  in  the  clear  lakes  below  you  see  them  in 
photographic  reflection  all  over  again,  the  crags,  the 
evergreens  and  the  straight  poles,  so  faithfully  and 
so  intimately  that  guide-books,  railroad  pamphlets, 
immigration  lecturers,  and  other  crude  authorities  go 
into  transports  at  the  spectacle,  and  not  only  that 
but  perhaps  really  believe  there  can  be  nothing  so 
beautiful  in  the  whole  world. 

But  conceive  a  photograph  of  Patterdale  giving  an 
American,  let  us  say,  any  idea  of  what  it  is  really  like. 
The  ever-shifting  lights  upon  the  mountains,  the 
radiancy  of  the  many-tinted  mantle  that  covers  them, 
exposing  just  so  much  of  cliff  and  crag  as  to  give  these 
value  and  ensure  the  dignity  of  the  picture.  The 
emerald  turf,  the  tawny  moor  grass,  the  orange-hued 
bilberry,  sheeny  bracken,  golden  gorse,  and  in  its 
season  the  purple  flare  of  heather,  with  a  score  of  other 
pigments,  laid  so  delicately  over  a  mountain-side 
that  not  a  curve  of  its  graceful  folds,  not  a  crag,  nor 
270 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

the  white  flash  of  a  ghyll  is  obscured.  Thank  heaven 
that  our  British  moors  and  mountains  are  bared  to  the 
sky  and  to  the  chasing  clouds,  and  free  to  roam  with- 
out a  hood  of  leaves,  or  worse  still,  of  pine  branches 
over  your  head !  Afforested  mountains  are  like  a 
beautiful  statue  over  which  a  robe  has  been  flung, 
obscuring  or  distorting  every  curve.  How  absurd 
it  would  be  to  say,  *  But  look  at  the  lovely  dark  green 
of  the  garment,'  or,  in  the  case  of  a  hard  wood  forest, 
which  I  grant  is  infinitely  preferable  to  the  other, 
*  mark  the  varied  colour  of  the  foliage  for  half  the 
year.'  But,  after  all,  it  is  only  in  Britain  and  our 
moist  island  climate  that  bare  mountains  can  be  so 
perfect  in  their  semi-nudity,  or  again  can  loom  so 
grandly  for  their  modest  altitude,  that  survey  measure- 
ments become  things  of  nought. 

Angle  tarn  is  of  a  peaty  quality,  and  the  trout  rather 
dark  to  match.  I  remember  a  terrible  morning  with 
them  some  years  ago  when  the  water  in  a  lovely 
ripple  was  literally  a-boil  with  rising  fish,  and  not  a  fly 
in  our  books  would  they  look  at.  Darkish-coloured 
small  flies  are  in  favour  on  all  these  tarns.  It  is  well, 
too,  to  use  drawn  gut  in  fine  weather,  unless  you 
prefer,  as  I  do,  the  finer  brands  of  the  new  substitute 
for  gut.  Angle  tarn  on  a  stormy  day,  however,  can 
be  as  boisterous  as  any  of  them  for  its  size.  I  well 
remember  a  whole  day  of  severe  buffeting  from  wind 
and  rain,  and  how  thankful  we  were  to  crawl  into  a 
natural  cave  at  the  west  end  of  the  lake  to  eat  our 
luncheon.  We  were  rewarded,  however,  for  our 
endurance  by  quite  a  fair  basket.  It  may  also  be 
added  that  there  is  always  a  chance  of  seeing  the  wild 

271 


CLEAR  WATERS 

red  deer  about  the  lake  ;  for  it  lies  within  the  bounds 
of  Martindale  forest,  which  stretches  from  Ullswater 
over  the  whole  High  Street  range,  and  far  in  the 
direction  of  Shap.  It  is  the  only  region  in  England, 
save  Exmoor,  carrying  the  indigenous  red  deer,  though 
here  they  are  shot,  not  hunted.  They  are  rather 
shy,  but  one  sees  them  quite  often  in  crossing  to 
Mardale,  and  they  make  a  noble  picture  when  grouped 
on  a  high  mountain-top  in  listening  attitude  with 
heads  erect  against  the  sky-line. 

Hayeswater,  a  mile  to  the  south  of  Angle  tarn,  is  a 
great  contrast  to  the  other.  It  fills  a  long  deep  cleft 
for  nearly  a  mile  between  steep  and  lofty  mountains  : 
the  great  green  cone  of  Gray  crag  shutting  it  in  upon 
the  south,  the  rugged  screes  of  the  High  Street  tower- 
ing high  above  the  upper  and  northern  side.  It  is 
a  deep,  pellucid,  and  rather  awesome  sheet  of  water, 
undeniably  intimidating  in  wild  weather  ;  otherwise, 
being  so  much  enclosed,  there  is  always  a  painful  un- 
certainty about  a  breeze,  whereas  Angle  tarn  is  gener- 
ally pretty  sure  of  one.  Its  trout,  too,  for  natural 
reasons  are  of  a  superior  quality  and  appearance. 
Quite  recently  its  waters  have  been  laid  under  tribute 
by  Penrith.  The  narrow  neck  of  the  outlet,  whence 
it  pours  out  to  rush  leaping  down  the  beautiful  gorge 
of  Hartsop  beck,  has  been  raised  a  few  feet  by  a 
short  stretch  of  stone  embankment.  This  is  all  there 
is  to  teU  the  tale  that  the  lake  supplies  several  thousand 
souls  fifteen  miles  away  with  its  limpid  waters.  But 
then  this  trifling  little  bit  of  stonework,  by  lifting  the 
water  a  few  feet,  has  thrown  the  lake  back  over  some 
fifty  or  more  acres  of  what  before  was  dry  bog  at  its 
272 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

head,  and  this  has  made  all  the  difference,  and  is  worth 
noting  by  any  one  interested  in  the  natural  history 
of  trout ;    for  it  has  nearly  doubled  the  size  of  the 
fish,  and  that,  too,  in  a  very  short  time.     Before  the 
water  was  raised  in  1909  a  basket  of  Hayeswater  trout 
ran  less  than  three  to  the  pound,  thick,  short,  game 
little    fish    though    they    were.     They    now    average 
consistently  two  to  the  pound,  and  fully  maintain  their 
high  quality,  an  increase  due  undoubtedly  to  the  large 
acreage  of  submerged  land  at  the  head.     If  they  rose 
rather  less  capriciously,  a  finer  lake  and  a  more  beautiful 
one  to  fish  I  know  nowhere.     I  had  a  day  upon  it  in 
191 2  with  a  well-known  Coquet  angler  in  early  July. 
I  had  occasionally  fished  Hayeswater  in  former  years, 
and  was  a  bit  sceptical  regarding  the  reported  increase 
in  the  size  of  its  fish.     A  west  wind  on  this  occasion 
blew  nicely  up  through  the  gateway  of  the  cul-de-sac 
in  which  the  lake  lies,  and  on  our  early  adjournment 
to  the  sandwiches  and  the  flasks,  with  an  appetite 
whetted  by  the  preliminary  two  hours'  walk,  we  had 
twelve  fish  between  us,  six  a-piece,  weighing  six  pounds, 
as  shapely,  bright,  and  thick  fish  as  I  ever  saw,  and 
practically  all  the  same  size,  kiUed  on  a  claret  and 
mallard  and  a  dark  March  brown.     We  enjoyed  our 
pipes  as  only  fishermen  do  in  the  quiet  of  the  hills 
and  beneath  the  modest  smiles  of  fortune  (for  a  tarn). 
The  breeze  was  holding  nicely,  and  what  a  basket 
would   be   ours    by  five   o'clock.     To  cut  short  the 
piteous  tale,  neither   of  us  had  even  a  rise,  though 
we  worked  hard  for  three  hours.     But  this,  of  course, 
need  not  be  held  as  a  final  judgment  on  Hayeswater. 
I  must  admit,  however,  that  my  occasional  days  there 
s  273 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  former  years,  when  the  fish  were  smaller,  bore  some- 
thing of  a  family  likeness  to  this  one.  One  may  won- 
der, too,  whether,  when  the  food  supply  of  the  newly 
submerged  land  is  exhausted,  the  trout  will  decline  to 
their  original  size  ! 

My  local  friends,  the  experts  before  alluded  to,  who 
have  fished  these  high  lakes  on  and  off  all  their  lives, 
corroborate  this  capriciousness  of  the  fish,  but  they 
have  all  a  few  great  days  to  tell  of,  wonderful  days, 
and  I  am  sure  to  tell  of  truly.  It  must  be  so.  I  have 
never  in  my  comparatively  few  ventures  here  been 
fortunate  enough  to  catch  these  tarn  trout  in  such 
consistent  mood,  and  this  is  very  tantalising  when 
you  know  how  numerous  they  are.  It  is  quite  certain 
that  no  ordinary  fair  fishing  could  ever  make  the 
faintest  impression  upon  any  of  these  large  tarns, 
even  if  their  inaccessibility  did  not  make  over-fishing 
out  of  the  question ;  and  it  cannot  be  stated  too  in- 
sistently that  hohday  visitors  to  Lakeland  practically 
never  fish,  nor  even  bring  a  rod  with  them.^  If  active, 
their  week  or  fortnight  in  a  place  is  fully  taken  up  with 
various  excursions.  If  otherwise,  the  tarns  are  far 
outside  their  scheme  of  enjoyment.  Even  Ullswater, 
though  calling  for  no  activity,  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
scarcely  ever  seriously  fished  by  visitors  from  a  distance, 
and  the  becks,  as  also  related,  can  only  nourish  quite 
undersized  fish,  so  scant  is  the  food  supply.  The  fish- 
ing public  of  the  Ullswater  district  is  represented  by 

'  To  save  any  possible  disappointments,  however,  it  may  be  well  to 
state  that  Lord  Lonsdale,  who  partly  as  owner  and  partly  as  recent  lessee 
holds  the  country  east  of  the  lake,  has  since  1912  absolutely  closed  Angle 
tarn,  Hayeswatcr,  Brotherswater,  and  the  becks  running  into  the  east  side 
of  Ullswater.  No  permission  is  granted  to  either  natives  or  strangers. 
274 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

a  small  handful  of  local  fishermen,  mostly  working  men, 
but  excellent  sportsmen  all,  and  such  others  from  Kendal 
or  Penrith  as  can  make  opportunity  to  get  to  the  hills 
now  and  again  for  a  day. 

Hayeswater  can  be  as  grisly  in  a  storm  as  any 
mountain  lake  I  know.  One  morning  a  few  years  ago 
I  walked  up  there  by  myself,  with  a  strong  rain-laden 
wind  from  the  SE.  When  I  arrived,  it  had  increased 
to  a  gale,  which  striking,  I  presume,  the  back  of  Kidsty 
Pike  and  the  High  Street,  reared  up  like  an  angry  horse  ; 
and  with  renewed  strength  tore  over  the  screes  and 
down  the  narrow  funnel  between  the  heights,  and 
was  lashing  the  waters  of  the  lake  into  a  seething 
mass  of  white  breakers.  It  was  with  great  difficulty  I 
mounted  my  tackle  at  all,  and  when  I  had  achieved  so 
much  I  could  scarcely  stand  to  use  it.  But  the  south 
shore  of  Hayeswater  is  a  long  succession  of  rounded 
humps  clad  with  short  grass,  which  fall  almost  sheer 
into  the  lake,  and  between  them  are  little  hollows  with 
a  scrap  of  flat  shore  each  a  few  paces  long.  Within 
these,  though  struggling  over  the  low  bluffs  from  one 
to  the  other  was  arduous,  I  managed  to  maintain  my- 
self and  get  a  line  out  somehow  into  the  waves,  slightly 
tempered  as  they  were  by  each  small  promontory,  and 
at  nearly  every  cast  I  rose  or  hooked  a  fish.  I  think 
I  really  should  have  had  a  big  basket  that  day  if  I 
could  have  stuck  it  out.  But  almost  immediately 
more  serious  rain  began,  I  won't  say  to  fall,  but  to  drive 
in  solid  sheets,  and  after  about  an  hour  I  was  so 
battered  that  I  gave  in.  Rain  one  may  endure,  wind 
one  can  put  up  with,  but  when  you  get  a  rain-laden  gale 
driving  every  fresh  cold  drop,  as  it  were,  right  through 

275 


CLEAR  WATERS 

your  clothes  on  to  your  skin,  it  begins  to  awaken  an 
irresistible  and  unworthy  yearning  to  turn  tail  to  the 
storm  and  make  for  home  and  a  hot  bath.  Moreover, 
what  with  the  wind  and  the  high  waves,  fine  gut  and 
a  stiffish  rod,  I  had  snicked  off  two  or  three  flies  in  fish, 
and  only  replaced  them  in  the  tumult  with  the  utmost 
difficulty.  So  when  the  cast  at  length  gave  way  above 
the  top  dropper,  by  some  untoward  combination  of 
an  unseen  turning  fish  and  a  tumbling  foam-crested 
billow,  I  could  not  muster  sufl[icient  resolution  to  lie  on 
my  face  under  a  wet  bank  and  mount  a  fresh  lot  on  a 
thicker  cast.  I  well  remember  the  savage  wildness  of 
that  scene — the  low  clouds  racing  in  ceaseless  battalions 
along  the  face  of  the  high  screes  and  crags,  and  the 
seething  surface  of  the  long,  gloomy  lake  below.  But 
finer  than  aU,  however,  the  waters  were  being  driven 
up  into  the  narrow  neck  at  the  lake  foot,  and  there 
seemed  to  concentrate  their  rage,  shooting  high  into 
the  air  in  solid  sheets,  to  be  flung  in  clouds  of  spray  for 
an  astonishing  distance  downward  into  the  ravine  of 
the  out-leaping  beck,  which  in  a  long  series  of  cascades 
descends  sharply  into  the  vale  far  below.  I  had  eight 
or  ten  fish  wrested  from  the  tempest  at  any  rate  for  as 
big  a  buffeting  and  complete  a  ducking  as  I  ever 
endured. 

On  quieter  days,  however,  it  is  a  beautiful  walk  up 
here  from  Patterdale,  leaving  the  main  road  near  the 
foot  of  Brotherswater,  and  taking  the  turf  track  above 
the  beck  from  the  romantic  little  hamlet  of  Low 
Hartsop — a  cluster  of  two  or  three  picturesque, 
cheerful  homesteads  overhung  with  ash  and  sycamore, 
and  three  or  four  smaller  ones  long  fallen  to  ruin  :  their 
2j6 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

crumbling  walls  deep  in  moss,  and  their  broken  roofs 
a  mass  of  ferns,  flowers,  and  wild  grasses.     Here,  too, 
you  may  see  the  old  spinning  galleries  thrust  out  of  the 
low,  dark,  upper  story,  where,  to  save  candle-light, 
in  the  thrifty  days  of  yore  the  women  sat  at  their 
wheels   spinning   the   wool   of   the  Herdwick  sheep, 
which  range  unfenced  over  the  great  '  stints  '  to  Mar- 
dale.     And  the  walk  up  the  Hartsop  beck,  with  fine 
glimpses  up  its  tributary  to  Raven  crag,  a  short  hour  at 
a  leisured  gait  to  the  lake,  is  delightful  on  a  fine  day. 
There  are  few  more  winsome  becks,  too,  than  this 
in   all  Lakeland,  leaping  down,   as  it  does,  in  sheer 
cataracts   of   no   mean   height,    from   pool   to   pool, 
fringed  lightly  with  birch  and  rowan,  and  full  of  small 
plump  trout,  easy  to  delude,  but  more  arduous  in 
the  getting  than  their  size  might  justify  for  the  very 
roughness  of  the  brook's  bosky  and  resounding  course. 
One  distraction  which  can  be  seen  and  heard  nowhere 
else  outside  Lakeland  may  easily  be  encountered  by  the 
angler  on  Hayeswater,   even  as  late  as  June.     And 
that    is    three,    four,    or    even   half   a   dozen   truant 
hounds  of  the  Ullswater  pack  running  foxes  upon  their 
own  account.     This  famous  pack  is  kept  in  kennels,  and 
hunted  regularly  till  about  the  middle  of  May — the 
late  lambing  season  and  predatory  humours  of  the 
mountain   foxes,   when   the  lambs   are   small,   giving 
the  pack  through  April  and  May  the  busiest  time  of 
their  season.     After  this  the  hounds  are  boarded  out 
among  the  neighbouring  farms,  and  it  is  the  simplest 
thing  in  the  world  for  them  to  follow  their  natural 
instinct,  slip  away  to  the  hills — having  privily,  no  doubt, 
made  arrangements  with  their  nearest  neighbour — and 

277 


CLEAR  WATERS 

have  a  bit  of  sport  upon  their  own  account.  Half 
the  people  in  the  dale  know  most  of  the  hounds  by 
name,  and  it  is  more  than  likely  that  the  shepherd- 
farmer  who  stops  to  have  a  crack  with  you  on  the  lake 
shore  will  recognise  each  one  of  these  truants  who  are 
waking  the  echoes  on  the  screes  above.  Brotherswater 
— that  deHghtful  gem  of  molten  silver,  which  gUtters 
beneath  the  westering  sun  in  any  panoramic  view  of 
Patterdale ;  and  on  airless  noons  and  mornings  almost 
invisible  from  its  mirror-like  reflections  of  the  woods 
and  mountain  which  overhang  it — is  a  shallow  lake  of 
meadowy  margin,  but  fringed  with  foliage  upon  the 
mountain-side,  where  the  Goldrill  streams  away  from 
its  foot  adown  the  dale.  It  is  full  of  small  trout,  and 
free  to  the  angler  (though  I  am  afraid  this  is  now  a 
thing  of  the  past),  save  for  the  hire  of  the  boat.  I  have 
not  fished  it  myself  for  many  years,  and  I  should  per- 
haps qualify  my  estimate  of  its  fish,  if  only  for  a  basket 
I  saw  brought  in  by  a  local  friend  quite  recently,  after  a 
whole  night  with  fly  or  bustard,  which  contained  among 
a  great  number  of  smaller  ones  at  least  a  dozen  fish  of 
a  third  to  half  a  pound  in  weight. 

Now  every  one  who  has  been  up  Helvellyn  from 
the  Ullswater  side,  or  even  stood  upon  the  summit, 
must  know  Red  tarn,  since  it  fills  the  crater-like  hollow 
below  the  mountain's  eastern  precipice,  and  is  walled 
in  on  either  side  by  the  rugged,  projecting  flankers 
of  Striding  and  Swhirrel  Edges.  In  short,  it  is  a 
conspicuous  feature  of  this,  the  grandest  side  by  far 
of  the  mighty  Helvellyn,  in  shape  a  half  moon,  and 
not  quite  a  mile  in  circumference.  Being  sheltered 
on  every  side  but  the  east,  it  is  more  than  likely  on 
278 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

most  summer  days  to  be  sleeping  like  a  mirror,  with 
the  precipitous  sides  of  the  mountain  intimately- 
reflected  in  its  crystal  waters.  It  is  two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  fifty-six  feet  above  sea-level,  and 
nearly  two  thousand  feet  above  Ullswater,  while  the 
northern  precipice  of  Helvellyn  rises  for  almost 
another  eight  hundred  feet  sheer  out  of  its  waters. 
Nobody,  save  occasionally  the  present  writer,  ever 
wets  a  line  on  Red  tarn,  though  all  the  world  is  welcome 
to.  This  might  argue  sheer  perversity  on  my  part. 
It  is  really  nothing  of  the  kind,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
a  most  reasonable  and  pleasant  accessory  to  a  day  on 
Helvellyn.  Nor  is  that  quite  all,  for  the  lake,  I  admit, 
fascinates  and  mystifies  me.  Not  one  of  the  little 
knot  of  expert  local  anglers  down  in  Patterdale,  to 
whom  all  the  other  waters  are  as  one  open  book, 
ever  fish  it,  though  one  or  two  of  them  can  remember 
having  done  so  perhaps  once  in  their  lives. 

*  What 's  the  matter  with  Red  tarn,  Tom  ?  ' 

*  There  's  nowt  the  matter  wi'  t'lake  as  I  knows 
on,'  says  that  hero  of  doughty  deeds  innumerable  by 
night  and  day. 

'  There  's  trout  in  it.' 

*  Oh  aye,  there 's  trout  in 't,  to  be  sure,  and  some 
fine  yins,  I  expect.' 

'  Did  you  ever  fish  it  ? ' 

*  Well,  now,  it  may  look  strange-like,  but  I  don't 
know  as  I  ever  did.' 

This  is  as  far  as  I  ever  got  regarding  Red  tarn  with 
my  local  acquaintances. 

I  should  like  to  believe  that  superstition  has  a  subtle 
hand  in  this,  and  that  the  loss  of  poor  young  Gough 

279 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  the  year  of  Trafalgar,  whose  remains  were  found 
by  the  lake-shore  weeks  afterwards,  watched  over  by 
his  still  living  but  emaciated  little  dog,  had  cast  a 
perennial  shadow  over  the  spot.  Wordsworth's  poem 
on  the  tragedy  may  be  remembered,  and  even  the 
poet,  who  hadn't  a  glimmering  of  the  sportsman  within 
him,  noted  the  rising  trout.     Hear  him  : — 

There  sometimes  doth  a  leaping  fish 
Send  through  the  tarn  a  lonely  cheer  j 
The  crags  repeat  the  Raven's  croak, 
In  Symphony  austere ; 
Thither  the  rainbow  comes — the  cloud 
And  mists  that  spread  the  flying  shroud 
And  sunbeams  ;  and  the  sounding  blast 
That  if  it  could  would  hurry  past. 

Alack  for  that  discordant  terminal  line,  but  such  was 
Wordsworth's  '  way.' 

At  any  rate,  I  will  allow  the  great  poet  to  supply 
one  other  reason  why  I  like  a  day  on  Red  tarn.  Pro- 
bably the  secret  of  its  neglect  lies  in  the  suspicion 
that  there  are  but  few  trout  in  it,  which  I  think  is  a 
fact,  though  rather  a  curious  one.  Fed  by  limpid 
springs,  and  drained  by  the  plashing  beck  that  runs 
down  to  Glenridding  :  with  gently  shelving,  pebbly,  or 
rocky  shores,  and  an  abundance  of  both  deep  and 
shallow  water,  it  looks  perfection.  It  is,  moreover, 
as  easy  and  pleasant  a  lake  to  fish  from  the  shore,  when 
there  is  a  sufficient  breeze,  as  could  be  found  in  all 
Britain.  The  trout,  what  there  are,  run  a  steady 
three  to  the  pound,  and,  though  sometimes  dark,  are 
shapely  of  form  and  strong  fighters.  I  say  *  what 
there  are,'  because  I  believe  the  mystery,  such  as  it  is, 

280 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

lies  in  paucity  of  numbers.     One  can  understand  a  lake 
holding  no  fish  at  all,  like  Grisedale  tarn,  of  which  a 
word  presently,  or  even  containing  a  few  large  ones 
only,  or  again,   being  full  of   stunted   fish.     But   it 
seems  strange  that  so  perfect  a  sheet  of  limpid  water 
should,   generation   after  generation,   support   but   a 
small   supply  of   rather  even-sized,  well-conditioned 
three-to-the-pounders.     I  have  seen  them  presumably 
on  the  rise  of  a  still  evening,  and  the  rings  are  un- 
doubtedly very  scattering  and  wide  apart.     I  have 
been  always  possessed  of  a  great  desire  to  kill  a  good 
basket  on  Red  tarn,  if  only  for  the  scepticism  with 
which  it  is  regarded  in  local  fishing  circles.     My  land- 
lord is  always  hearty  and  hopeful  as  he  despatches  us 
to  the  other  lakes ;  but  indifference  amounting  almost 
to  disapproval  lurks  in  his  eye  as  I  turn  up  Glen- 
ridding  beck  on  the  Helvellyn  trail.     In  fact  I  never 
let  on  now  that  I  am  going  to  Red  tarn,  but  merely 
announce    my   intention    of    climbing   Helvellyn    by 
Striding  Edge,  taking  a  small  rod  with  me  bound  on 
to  my  long  climbing  staif.     So,  without  laying  myself 
open  to  the  rather  humiliating  sympathy  which  greets 
the  return  of  the  unsuccessful  angler,  I  can  stealthily, 
as  it  were,  continue  my  experiments  and  my  efforts 
to  confute  the  champions  of  the  Vale  and  their  nega- 
tively   contemptuous    attitude    towards    this    most 
beautiful  little  lake.     Yet  that  is  not  precisely  their 
attitude  either,  which  makes  it  all  the  more  perplexing. 
For  each  one  of  them  qualifies  his  own  abstention 
with  the  oracular  delivery  : — *  Ay,  there  's  bonnie  fish 
in  yon  lake,   I  expect.'     But  they  never  go  there  ! 
I    really  do  think  Gough's  wraith  must  have  it  in 

281 


CLEAR  WATERS 

possession,  for  the  horrible  suspicion  that  the  faithful 
little  dog  kept  life  in  her  for  so  many  weeks  by  devour- 
ing her  master's  flesh  is  inseparable  from  the  tragedy. 
Seriously,  though,  I  have  once  or  twice  thought  my 
heart's  desire  was  actually  within  my  grasp.     On  one 
occasion  I  had  seven  or  eight  fish  before  lunch,  the 
most  I  have  ever  killed  in  a  day  in  this  mysterious 
lake.     And  then  I  flogged  it  all  the  afternoon  without 
another  touch  !     The  last  time  I  was  up  there  I  hooked 
at  the  very  first  cast  and  basketed  the  handsomest  fish 
I   have  had  out  of  the  lake.     Eternal  hope  sprang 
once  more  in  my  breast,  especially  as  two  or  three 
years  had  passed  since  the  last  experiment.     And  then 
came  a  long  blank,  when  I  handed  my  rod  to  a  com- 
panion, climbed  up  to  the  top  of  Helvellyn  by  Striding 
Edge,  was  rewarded  by  a  glorious  view,  and  so  down 
by  Swhirrel  Edge  on  the  other  side  of  the  lake.     My 
friend  had  got  one  more  in  the  hour  I  was  absent. 
After  that  we  tried  alternately,  but  in  vain,  though 
every  condition  was  propitious ;    and  the  tarn  along 
every  foot  of  its  shore  does  lend  itself  so  perfectly 
to  effective  and  comfortable  treatment  with  a  fly-rod. 
But    after  all,  the   two   hours'  walk  from  Ullswater 
along  the  high  ridge  leading  to  Helvellyn,  with  that 
glorious  ever-present  prospect  of  Grisedale  below  you, 
if   only  to  lunch  at  Red  tarn,  beneath  the  mighty 
precipice  of  Helvellyn,   would  be  accounted  of  itself 
a  day  well  spent  by  many  to  whom  trouting  is  a  vain 
thing.     And  so  it  is,  and  if  despairing  of  trout,  and 
seizing  the  propitious  moment  when  the  peak  is  free 
of  cloud,  you  can  add  its  modest  conquest  and  its 
noble  outlook   to   your   little    day,  the    fish    may  be 
282 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

accounted  but  an  incident  in  the  outing.  It  is  a 
lonely,  imposing,  and  inspiring  spot.  In  June  you 
may  pass  a  whole  day  here  without  seeing  a '  soul, 
though  two  of  the  regular  routes  up  the  mountain 
pass  within  sight  of  it.  Looking  up  at  Striding  Edge 
from  Red  tarn,  particularly  if  it  is  opening  and  shutting 
its  dark,  rugged  outline  in  a  driving  mist,  it  seems 
really  perilous  and  intimidating,  though  every  one 
knows  there  is  nothing  in  it  to  any  reasonably  active 
wight  with  a  steady  head.  Indeed,  Swhirrel  Edge  is 
much  harder  work,  and  nearly  as  easy  to  tip  over  from. 
Now  every  one  who  has  ascended  or  descended 
Helvellyn  on  the  Grasmere  side  knows  Grisedale  tarn, 
for  the  path  leads  along  its  shores.  It  is  nearly  round, 
and  more  than  a  mile  in  circumference.  That  trout 
of  some  sort  inhabited  it  any  knowledgeable  angler 
would  assume  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  looks  made  for 
them,  and  the  Grisedale  beck,  which  contains  the  usual 
share  of  small  ones  plunges  out  of  it  down  the  beautiful 
glen  whose  name  it  bears.  But  there  really  are  no 
fish  here.  The  dalesmen  say  so  emphatically,  though 
such  a  matter  is  perhaps  difficult  to  prove  positively. 
I  selected  not  long  ago  a  perfect  day  for  the  experi- 
ment, and  fished  it  steadily  with  a  lovely  breeze  for 
two  or  three  hours  without  a  sign  of  one.  I  have 
heard  some  talk  of  trout  here  in  former  days,  but  why 
not  now  ?  There  are  no  bad  practices  carried  on  in 
this  country.  Besides,  if  there  were,  they  could  not 
empty  a  deep  mountain  lake  over  a  mile  round,  with 
a  trouting  beck  running  out  of  it.  These  things  are 
very  mysterious.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
something  more  of  them.     Grisedale  has  apparently 

283 


CLEAR  WATERS 

much  better  feeding  than  Red  tarn,  for  numbers  of 
small  *  sikes '  from  wide-stretching,  boggy  slopes  run 
into  it ;    while  Red  tarn  is  wholly  fed  by  springs  or 
short,  tiny  rills  from  precipitous  cliffs,  so  there  may 
well  be  an  insufficient  lack  of  bottom  feed  to  support 
many  trout.     But  why  are  there  none  in  the  other  ? 
Can  it  be  an  utter  lack  of  spawning  ground,  and  why 
is  Angle  tarn,  physically  a  duplicate  of  this  larger  one, 
as  full  of  trout  as  it  can  hold !     Nor  must  I  by  any 
means  forget  to  mention  that  in  Red  tarn  there  are 
some  of  those  strange  fish  like  a  fresh-water  herring, 
precisely  the  same  species,  I   think,  as  are  found  in 
Bala,  and  known  as  Gwyniad  in  Wales  and  Skellies  in 
the  Lake  country.     They  are  rarely  seen  and  never 
caught  on  a  line,  though  sometimes  in  the  nets,  but 
being  very  tender  are  frequently  killed  by  the  dashing 
of  the  waves  upon  a  rocky  shore  and  thrown  up  dead. 
I  have  seen  them  at  Bala,  and  they  have  been  picked 
up  at  Red  tarn.     There  used  to  be  plenty  of  them  in 
UUswater  and  other  lakes,  but  I  think  they  are  now  ex- 
tinct.  There  were  once  quantities  of  char  in  UUswater; 
now  there  is  not  one.     As  they  mainly  haunt  deep 
waters  and  rise  but  little  to  the  fly,  the  angler  as  such 
has  no  particular  reason  to  regret  their  disappearance. 
This  is  said  to  be  due  to  the  lead  pollution  of  the  Glen- 
ridding  beck,  not  from  any  effect  which  the  latter  had 
upon  that  corner  of  the  lake,  which,  as  already  men- 
tioned, does  not  affect  the  trout,  but  because  the  said 
beck  was  the  old  spawning-ground  of  the  char.    Trout, 
when  deprived  of  one  spawning-ground  seek  another, 
but  it  seems  that  char  lack  this  initiative,  or  instinct. 
Since   writing   the   first   portion   of   this    chapter, 
284 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

the  unexpected  has  happened  in  the  shape  of  another 
fortnight  on  UUswater — not  undertaken  mainly  in 
the  interests  of  trout,  but  for  the  latter  portion  of  the 
mountain  fox-hunting  season.  As  a  rule,  however, 
the  two  work  in  beautifully  together.  But  unfortun- 
ately for  the  well-laid  scheme,  this  last  April  was  so 
late  and  so  cold,  and  the  snow  still  lay  so  deep  in  the 
high  mountain  hollows,  that  the  lake  trout  had  barely 
got  going.  Nor  had  my  local  friends,  who,  with  all 
May  before  them,  could  regard  the  situation  with 
complacency;  we,  unfortunately,  could  not.  At  our 
first  attempt  we  got  three,  at  our  second  nine,  at  our 
third  eleven !  Things  were  beginning  to  improve, 
and  as  with  the  opening  of  May  we  steamed  sorrowfully 
down  the  lake  to  meet  the  coach  at  Pooley  bridge,  I 
need  not  say  it  was  the  first  good-looking  day  of  the 
season,  a  lovely  ripple  and  a  balmy  air.     There  was  only 

one  boat  out,  and  that  off  Howtown.     It  was  C ; 

I  waved  him  a  farewell  salute  full  of  envy.  I  heard 
incidentally  he  got  twenty  that  day,  and  I  feel  quite 
sure  from  what  I  know  of  his  fancy  that  he  killed  them 
on  a  black-hackle  and  a  Broughton-point. 

Most  of  us,  I  am  inclined  to  suspect,  who  have  a 
fancy  for  mountain  tarns  are  almost  as  much  fascinated 
by  the  eeriness  of  their  portentous  gloom  in  wild 
weather  as  by  the  attractions  of  their  gentler  moods. 
For  myself,  I  do  not  think  there  is  anything  in  all 
nature  within  these  islands  so  impressive  as  the  former, 
more  especially  if  one  is  absolutely  alone.  And,  after 
all,  it  is  only  a  few  of  us  anglers  that  are  ever  in  a 
position  to  cultivate  a  protracted  intimacy  with  these 
innermost  haunts  of  the  spirit  of  solitude.     I   well 

285 


CLEAR  WATERS 

remember  the  effect  of  one  of  these  creepy  experiences 
on  a  little  Welsh  boy,  and  how  it  operated  to  my 
undoing.  Now  there  is  a  grim  little  tarn  in  a  lonely 
spot  beneath  the  precipice  of  one  of  the  Arrans  in  the 
neighbourhood  of  Bala  lake.  It  is  a  four-mile  walk 
there  over  the  hills,  but  worth  the  effort,  not  merely 
for  its  striking  situation  but  for  the  excellent  trout, 
running  about  three  to  the  pound,  which  sometimes 
rise  well  to  the  fly.  On  the  occasion  of  this  particular 
visit  to  it,  having  been  slightly  injured  by  an  accident, 
I  made  interest  with  the  village  schoolmaster  to  supply 
me  {ultra  vires,  of  course)  with  an  urchin,  as  bearer  of 
my  waders,  brogues,  basket,  etc.  And  incidentally 
I  had  always  to  make  a  considerable  detour  that 
summer  for  a  black  bull  who,  as  the  old  Latin  saying 
goes,  had  '  hay  on  his  horns '  and  made  the  mountains 
echo  with  his  minatory  roars.  My  urchin  had,  of 
course,  no  English,  and  what  was  passing  in  his  mind 
I  could  only  surmise.  His  spirits  were  evidently 
maintained  throughout  the  morning  by  my  fairly 
frequent  calls  for  the  landing-net.  But  later  on  the 
clouds  came  down  upon  the  tarn,  racing  low  in  filmy 
shrouds  against  the  black  precipices  and  blotting  out 
the  world.  The  fish  ceased  to  rise,  but  persevering 
in  hopes  of  better  times  I  presently  forgot  all  about 
the  boy,  having  no  use  for  the  net.  When  eventually 
I  looked  around  for  him  the  wretched  *  bachen '  was 
nowhere  to  be  seen,  and  I  hunted  the  shores  of  that 
now  gloomy  tarn  filled  with  the  most  horrible  fore- 
bodings. The  landing-net  was  there  sure  enough 
lying  on  the  bank.  Could  the  brat  be  at  the  bottom 
of  the  lake,  for  I  hadn't  seen  him  for  an  hour  f  There 
286 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

was  nothing  for  it  but  to  make  for  home,  bearing 
the  burden  that  should  have  been  his,  though  that 
inconvenience  was  as  nought  compared  to  the  load 
I  carried  on  my  mind.  I  didn't  even  bother  about 
the  bull,  in  the  mist,  a  piece  of  foolhardiness — as  know- 
ing Welsh  bulls — I  should  be  utterly  incapable  of  in 
calmer  moments.  To  shorten  my  tale  the  miserable 
brat  turned  out  to  be  at  home  safe  and  sound,  and  the 
reaction  from  anxiety  to  wrath  on  my  part  was  great. 
We  had  it  out,  with  the  schoolmaster  as  interpreter,  the 
mother  and  the  boy  having  no  English.  It  transpired 
that  the  urchin  had  become  terrified  at  the  lonely  and 
gruesome  aspect  of  the  place,  and  left  so  long  to  his 
own  reflection  had  incontinently  fled.  The  school- 
master begged  me  not  to  give  him  his  shilling,  but  I 
thought  in  this  particular  I  perhaps  understood  the 
situation  better  than  the  pedagogue,  who  provided 
me  on  the  next  occasion  with  a  stouter-hearted  ghillie, 
proof  against  hobgoblins  and  supernatural  influences. 
After  all,  this  was  the  very  spot,  according  to  the  poet, 
where  Timon  inspired  the  youthful  Arthur,  a  very 
haunt  of  magic  memories ;  so  who  knows  but  that 
this  little  Goidel,  this  insignificant  representative  of  a 
primitive  speech  and  a  primitive  race  may  have  seen 
and  heard  things  not  revealed  to  a  Saesenog. 

There  is  very  fair  fishing  for  heavy  trout  in  Winder- 
mere, Derwentwater,  and  Bassenthwaite,  and  a  good 
rise  of  mayfly,  called  here  the  '  drake  '  on  all  three. 
With  Windermere  fishing  I  have  no  personal  acquaint- 
ance, but  I  see,  as  I  write  this,  that  a  well-known 
Manchester  angler  killed  over  a  hundred  trout  there 
last  year  of  from  one  to  four  pounds  a-piece  with  fly. 

287 


CLEAR  WATERS 

On  Derwentwater  there  are,  or  were,  a  considerable 
number  of  local  fishermen,  obviously  men  of  leisure. 
For  every  morning,  from  early  May  till  the  drake  season, 
you  might  see  half  a  dozen  boats  come  rowing  down 
from  Keswick  to  the  upper  reaches  of  the  lake  between 
the  old  lead  mines  and  Lodore.  Here  they  would  fish 
and  re-fish  over  the  drifts  as  the  wind  ordained.  At 
either  end  of  every  boat  was  planted  an  angler  always 
standing  up  and  waving  a  fifteen-foot  rod  as  if  it  were 
twenty  pound  salmon  and  not  pound  trout  that  he 
was  after.  Why  they  did  not  sit  down  comfortably 
with  a  ten-foot  rod  I  never  could  imagine ;  for  the 
extra  distance  they  might  cast  (and  trout  don't  mind 
a  boat  very  much)  was  at  least  neutralised  by  the  extra 
display  of  their  persons  to  the  fish.  Why  these  enor- 
mous rods,  this  violent  exertion,  this  tiresome  balancing 
on  heel  and  toe  in  an  often  rocking  boat  I  cannot 
think.  But  the  fishermen  of  Derwentwater  main- 
tained that  you  could  not  catch  their  trout  any 
other  way.  I  did,  however,  and  so  of  course  would 
anybody.  At  least  I  caught  my  share  in  the  two  or 
three  days  of  the  mayfly  season  in  which  I  occupied 
one  of  a  dozen  or  fifteen  boats  on  the  lake.  For  when 
the  drake  comes  up,  anglers  come  out  in  much  greater 
force,  and  when  the  drake  goes  down,  the  trout,  I 
believe,  remain  at  the  bottom  for  the  rest  of  the  season. 
But  this  was  over  a  dozen  years  ago,  and  the  per- 
pendicular attitude  and  salmon-rod  superstition  may 
have  given  way.  May-fly  seasons  vary  of  course  im- 
mensely. When  I  was  there  it  was  a  bad  one,  and  we 
didn't  average  more  than  two  brace  a  day  to  a  rod. 
A  pound  is  the  unit  weight  on  Derwentwater,  but  fish 
288 


THE  ENGLISH  LAKE  COUNTRY 

often  run  much  larger,  and  very  good  baskets  are  occa- 
sionally made,  and  many  blanks,  it  may  also  be  added, 
are  endured.  I  am  not  passionately  attached  to  boat 
fishing,  but  if  accessories  can  glorify  it,  it  is  surely  here 
on  these  matchless  lakes.  It  is  a  pretty  sight,  too, 
that  of  the  mayflies  pursuing  their  brief  dance  at  all 
heights  over  Derwentwater  with  the  sea-gulls  darting 
at  them  in  mid-air.  The  fly  hatches  considerably  later 
on  Bassenthwaite,  so  that  the  Keswick  angler  has  some- 
thing like  two  seasons,  and  the  trout  there  are  about 
the  same  size.  I  have  fished  Buttermere,  too,  and 
Crummock,  only  divided,  it  may  be  remembered,  from 
one  another  by  a  few  meadows.  Lovely  as  they  are 
to  sojourn  by,  they  furnish  nowadays  for  some  reason 
very  indifferent  trout-fishing,  and  the  fish  run  com- 
paratively small,  Buttermere,  which  is,  or  was,  neither 
fished,  netted,  nor  poached,  being  the  worst  of  all ! 
As  in  Windermere  and  Derwentwater,  so  in  these 
two  smaller  lakes  the  char  is  indigenous.  As  they 
haunt  the  deep  waters,  they  are  fished  for  very  deep 
with  special  trolling  tackle,  in  June,  more,  I  imagine, 
for  the  sake  of  the  pot  than  the  sport.  Potted  char 
is  as  well  known  a  local  production  of  Keswick  as  is 
the  potted  lamprey  of  Worcester.  I  believe,  however, 
Ennerdale  is  quite  a  good  fishing  lake  for  the  smaller 
variety  of  trout.  There  is,  moreover,  a  small  but 
comfortable  inn  upon  its  banks  with  boats  attached. 
The  lords  of  the  manor  have  netting  rights  on  nearly 
all  these  waters.  The  nets  are  used  a  little,  but  so  far 
from  the  privilege  being  abused,  there  are  some  lakes 
which  would  benefit  if  it  were  exercised  more. 

T  289 


CLEAR  WATERS 


IX 

IN  AND  AROUND  NORTHUMBERLAND 

THE  regrettable  fact  that  I  have  never  wetted 
a  line  in  Derbyshire  or  Yorkshire  might  well 
seem  a  rather  serious  quaUfication  of  my 
claim  to  have  wandered  rather  widely  by  English  and 
Welsh  waters.  But  to  me,  at  any  rate,  there  is  some 
substantial  compensation,  in  the  memory  of  a  genial 
month  spent  in  the  west  Yorkshire  dales.  As  this 
was  the  merry  month  of  May,  it  was  with  painfully 
mixed  feelings  that  I  found  myself,  though  not  dis- 
qualified from  any  other  form  of  activity,  temporarily 
incapacitated  from  wielding  a  rod.  It  seems  rather 
at  odds  with  the  flavour  of  these  pages  to  frankly 
state  that  in  the  retrospect  I  am  extremely  glad  it  thus 
fell  out.  I  was  not  altogether  of  that  opinion  at  the 
time,  though  old  enough  and  wise  enough,  I  trust, 
to  recognise  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  virtue  in  the 
necessity.  Moreover,  I  was  engaged  in  the  congenial 
task  of  assisting  Mr.  Sutton  Palmer,  the  best  delineator 
of  mountain  streams  known  to  me,  in  celebrating  these 
glories  of  the  Yorkshire  dales  upon  the  printed  page. 
I  would  not  give  a  fig  for  the  opinion  of  the  Royal 
Academy  on  the  interpretation  of  a  mountain  river. 
What  do  the  vast  majority  of  landscape  painters  know 
290 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

about  them  ?  And,  indeed,  how  often  does  their 
want  of  intimacy  and  sympathy  hit  you  in  the  eye  ! 
Any  one  can  paint  the  Thames,  and  the  candid  sense 
of  impotency  which  so  frankly  inserts  a  backwater  of 
that  noble  river  in  the  heart  of  a  quick-stream  land- 
scape seems  almost  commendable.  But  Mr.  Sutton 
Palmer  can  paint  for  the  fisherman  who  knows  about 
these  things,  and  has  lived  with  them.  One  could 
almost  fish  a  pool  over  on  his  canvas,  and  know  exactly 
where  to  expect  a  rise.  The  woods  and  rocks  and 
moors  through  which  his  life-like  rivers  run  are 
those  we  see,  and  surely  we  ought  to  know.  Per- 
haps they  are  too  realistic  for  the  rules  of  Chelsea 
studios ;  but  these  shibboleths  are  nothing  to  us,  and 
have  no  significance  for  the  lover  of  nature  and  those 
intimate  with  rapid  waters  and  their  atmosphere. 
And  nature  after  all  is  a  great  deal  more  beautiful 
and  much  more  important  than  Art  with  the  biggest 
of  A's.  So  when  I  look  on  Mr.  Palmer's  vistas  of  the 
Ure  and  Swale,  the  Wharfe  or  Kibble,  the  pleasant 
days  on  which  I  fished  so  much  of  them  in  fancy 
without  a  rod  comes  very  vividly  back  to  me,  and  I 
am  grateful  now  for  this,  at  the  moment  rather 
tantalising  deprivation.  For  it  has  endowed  me  with 
a  far  more  extended  picture  gallery  of  these  beautiful 
dales  of  the  West  Riding  than  I  should  possess  had  I 
been  able  to  concern  myself  with  their  trout. 

Of  Derbyshire  streams  I  have  neither  fished,  nor 
seen  any  but  from  the  train,  though  the  very  edge 
of  that  county  I  associate  oddly  enough  with  two  as 
pleasant  days'  trouting  as  I  ever  enjoyed  in  England. 
This  was  at  Welbeck  many  years  ago  in  the  duke's 

291 


CLEAR  WATERS 

waters  at  Cresswell  crags.  These  days  were  not 
consecutive,  but  in  two  succeeding  years,  in  May 
and  June  respectively.  They  are  only  noteworthy 
for  the  curious  relationship  in  weight  and  number  of 
fish  they  bore  to  one  another.  On  the  first  occasion 
two  of  us  killed  just  fifty  trout  weighing  twenty 
pounds.  The  next  year  the  mayfly  happened  to  be 
on,  and  though  being  caught  unprepared  and  un- 
provided with  patterns,  the  same  friend  and  myself 
killed  with  other  flies  in  the  same  waters  twenty-five 
fish  also  weighing  twenty  pounds  :  exactly  half  the 
number  and  precisely  the  same  aggregate  weight ! 
And  as  on  each  evening  we  had  a  three-mile  tramp 
home  to  our  quarters  bearing  our  burden,  though  no 
doubt  cheerfully,  I  have  further  reasons  for  remem- 
bering the  incident.  But  did  a  tight  basket  strap 
ever  really  tire  an  angler  ? 

This  was  just  within  Nottingham,  a  shire  otherwise 
associated  vaguely  in  my  mind  with  wonderful  winches 
holding  hundreds  of  yards  of  line  from  which  the 
natives  hurl  substantial  baits  of  mysterious  kinds 
with  trained  precision  across  leisurely  expansive  rivers. 
But  our  days  were  in  the  Dukeries,  not  on  the  Trent, 
a  limestone  region  where  trout  seem  to  wax  and 
flourish  in  every  bit  of  water  that  will  cover  their 
back  fin.  As  I  have  skirted  Derbyshire  thus  briefly 
and  memorably  to  myself  in  late  years,  so  in  boyhood, 
more  frequently  but  with  nothing  approaching  such 
baskets,  have  I  plied  a  rod  upon  the  edge  of  Yorkshire — 
on  the  Wear  and  upper  Tees  in  the  now  besmirched 
palatinate  of  Durham.  These  two  rivers  rise  in  neigh- 
bouring wilds  and  run  out  of  the  high  Durham  moors 
292 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

in  two  parallel  valleys.  The  upper  Wear,  though 
even  in  those  days  disfigured  here  and  there  with 
mining  villages  and  slightly  tinged  with  lead  hush, 
was  a  broad  and  beautiful  river,  rocky,  rapid,  and  begirt 
with  sylvan  scenery.  Some  school  friends  of  mine 
lived  on  its  banks,  and  were  wonderfully  handy  and 
knowing  fishermen  from  boyhood  onwards.  They 
made  their  own  rods,  tied  their  own  flies,  and  through 
the  summer  months  always  used  horsehair.  The 
Wear  trout  ran  small,  about  four  to  the  pound,  with 
always  better  possibilities.  But  they  were  extremely 
shy,  and  in  the  summer  months  at  any  rate,  during 
which  my  frequent  and  lengthy  visits  were  generally 
paid,  took  a  lot  of  catching.  The  small  local  school  of 
fishermen  to  which  my  friends  belonged  were  purists 
in  their  own  way  of  a  type  which,  though  differently 
fashioned,  could  have  almost  given  odds  to  the  dry- 
fly  purists  of  to-day.  A  rod  procured  at  a  tackle 
maker's  was  here  anathema,  and  an  object  of  scorn, 
that  of  any  London  maker  of  repute  being  held  in 
especial  contempt.  And  I  am  bound  to  say  you  could 
not  have  purchased  anywhere  in  those  days  rods  of 
such  featherweight,  balance,  and  driving-power  all 
combined  as  were  made  by  these  lads  and  their  neigh- 
bours. They  were  on  the  stiff  side,  and  built  to 
splice.  Ferrules  were  regarded  like  anything  else 
that  came  from  a  manufacturer's  as  Cockney  abomina- 
tions. These  Arcadians  were,  in  fact,  twenty  years 
ahead  of  their  time ;  that  was  about  all. 

I  can  recall  even  at  this  hour  the  feel  of  those 
home-made  rods.  You  could  purchase  any  amount  of 
similar  weapons  to-day,  and  of  course  infinitely  smarter 

293 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  the  make-up.  But  you  couldn't  buy  one  anything 
like  them  then.  I  well  remember  the  self-abasement 
with  which  I  used  to  compare  my  Exeter-built  rods, 
models  of  lightness  as  they  were  regarded  in  my  own 
small  circle,  with  these  others,  these  graceful  but 
powerful  little  featherweights.  Whether  they  would 
have  stood  a  great  strain  I  do  not  know,  for  they  were 
rarely  called  upon  to  do  so.  Bowden's  masterpieces 
were  utterly  condemned  in  these  hypercritical  circles 
as  clumsy,  wobbly,  and  top-heavy,  though  admitted  to 
be  an  improvement  on  the  ordinary  '  Cockney '  rod, 
by  which  I  fear  was  meant  the  productions  of  Farlow 
and  other  such  great  men.  When  possible  I  was 
supplied  with  a  *  proper  rod,'  for  which  indeed  I  was 
always  truly  grateful,  and  spared  the  sense  of  humiliation 
inseparable  from  waving  an  unscientific  article  of 
commerce  over  the  sacred  waters  of  the  Wear.  Here, 
too,  I  was  first  introduced  to  the  single  hair,  and  if 
there  was  a  chestnut  stallion  domiciled  in  that  part  of 
the  country  I  am  sure  the  demands  upon  his  tail  must 
have  reduced  it  to  the  most  ignoble  proportion.  The 
flies  were,  I  need  hardly  say,  tied  at  home,  and  I  can 
still  remember  the  half-dozen  popular  varieties ;  for 
this  type  of  purism  dealt  very  little  in  scientific 
entomology,  though  like  that  of  Mr.  Stewart  its  flies 
did  great  things. 

Local  prejudices  were  intensely  strong.  They 
were  not  confined  to  rods,  tackle,  and  flies,  but  even 
the  landing-net  there  in  vogue  was  the  only  possible 
variety  that  it  was  decent  to  be  seen  about  with.  Any 
other  pattern  wrote  down  its  bearer  as  hopelessly  out- 
side the  pale.  This  local  sample  had  a  stout  shaft, 
294 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

probably  of  ash,  shod  with  a  spike  and  a  hook,  and  at 
the  other  end  the  net  was  strung  on  a  large  fixed 
hoop  of  wood.  It  was  a  tremendous  net  for  quarter- 
pounders  and  an  odd  half-pounder,  as  it  towered  above 
the  angler's  head  while  he  used  it,  like  many  others 
elsewhere,  as  a  prop  and  support,  for  the  Wear  was 
a  wading  river.  You  couldn't  wade  the  Wear  with- 
out this  particular  type  of  implement.  You  might 
negotiate  other  rivers  successfully  perhaps,  and  rivers 
too,  exactly  like  the  Wear,  but  you  couldn't  fish  the 
Durham  stream  properly  without  this  tremendous 
accessory.  It  would  have  been  wholly  unorthodox. 
You  might  be  all  right  with  a  short-handled  net  slung 
conveniently  at  your  back  for  a  time  if  you  were  pre- 
pared to  outrage  every  local  tradition.  But  you  would 
be  drowned  some  day  to  a  certainty.  It  might  be  for 
years,  but  it  wouldn't  be  for  ever,  that  you  would 
escape  this  untimely  fate.  And  this  in  spite  of  the 
fact  that  waders  were  not  yet  in  use  up  there  and  you 
could  swim  like  a  duck. 

The  champion  fisherman  of  that  neighbourhood 
who  chiefly  voiced  this  unwritten  code,  and  even 
published  part  of  it,  was  the  headmaster  of  an  almost 
derelict  grammar  school.  He  wrote  a  treatise  on 
trout-fishing,  and  a  very  good  one  too,  illustrated  by 
himself  with  coloured  plates  of  flies.  He  had  scarcely, 
I  think,  ever  fished  any  other  river  but  the  Wear  and 
its  tributaries,  so  that  his  utterances  were  unavoidably 
flavoured  with  limitations,  to  say  nothing  of  prejudices. 
All  rivers  in  the  south  of  England,  for  instance,  were 
sluggish  canals,  and  all  the  trout  fat  and  lethargic,  and 
(if  memory  serves  me)  quite  easy  to  catch,  with  the 

295 


CLEAR  WATERS 

uncanny  flies  of  commerce  purchased  in  Oxford  Street 
or  the  Strand.     What  the  dry-fly  purist  would  say  if 
he  lit  upon  a  stray  edition  of  this  now  scarce  work  I 
cannot  imagine.     The  author  reserved,  I  remember, 
one  of  his  most  keenly  pointed  shafts  of  ridicule  for  all 
other  landing-nets  save  those  of  the  type  above  de- 
scribed.    They  were  all '  cabbage  nets,'  which  stamped 
their  bearers  as  past  hope.     He  was  as  fine  an  angler 
though,  this  old  gentleman,  as  he  was  incompetent  in 
his  professional  capacity,  though  he  had  only  one  hand, 
a  condition  which  possibly  accounted  for  his  fiery  and 
uncompromising  attitude  towards  landing-nets.     Per- 
haps circumstances  had  been  too  much  for  him,  but  the 
grammar  school   died   of   an   atrophy  like   so   many 
others  in  small  places  that  had  outlived  their  utility. 
So  possibly  the  pedagogic  energy  and  scholarship  of 
this  master-fisherman  had  never  been  put  to  the  test. 
Perhaps  he  had  never  been  extended ! 

When  I  first  knew  the  place  the  school  beU  used 
still  to  ring  the  hours  of  work,  and  a  stock  local  joke 
warned  the  stranger  lurking  near  to  have  a  care  lest 
he  should  be  borne  down  by  the  wild  rush  of  one  boy. 
My  friends  had  sat  at  his  feet  before  they  went  to  a 
public  school,  at  a  more  prosperous  period  when  the 
total  number  of  boys,  inclusive  of  themselves,  ap- 
proached double  figures,  and  they  had  many  funny 
stories  of  the  old  man,  for  they  were  humorists  as 
well  as  fishermen.  He  was  engaged  on  his  angling 
book  at  the  period  of  their  attendance,  a  task  which 
he  used  to  pursue  in  school  hours,  delightfully  obli- 
vious to  the  progress  or  the  discipline  of  his  little  class. 
On  one  occasion  during  the  time  when  he  was  more 

296 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

immediately  concerned  with  his  illustrations,  having 
called  the  class  to  order,  he  proceeded  to  the  black- 
board to  chalk  up  an  arithmetical  problem  the  solution 
of  which  might  peradventure  keep  them  quiet  for  a 
little.  But  the  absorption  of  his  faculties  in  the 
magnum  opus  was  apparently  so  complete  that  when 
he  moved  from  the  front  of  the  board  instead  of  the 
expected  figures  there  was  revealed  to  the  delight  of 
his  tormentors  the  proportions  of  a  noble  trout.  A 
bull  trout,  my  friends  used  to  say  it  was  meant  for, 
the  salmo  eriox  being  a  regular  autumn  visitor  to  the 
waters  of  Wear  and  therefore  an  item  in  its  literature. 
There  was  a  great  raid  by  the  Education  Commis- 
sioners about  this  time  on  derelict  grammar  schools, 
to  the  eventual  extinction  of  many.  It  so  happened 
that  the  commissioner  who  inspected  this  part  of 
England  was  a  family  friend  of  ours  and  had  some  rare 
stories  to  tell  of  the  humours  that  accompanied  their 
deplorable  conditions,  including  more  than  one  case, 
I  remember,  where  the  headmaster,  happy  in  his  small 
fixed  endowment,  secretly  paid  a  solitary  scholar  to 
absent  himself.  I  remember  well  that  our  angling 
pedagogue  on  the  Wear  and  his  establishment  caused 
the  aforesaid  commissioner  immense  entertainment, 
and  stood  out  even  in  the  treasure-house  of  oddities 
that  his  duties  had  incidentally  provided  and  so  richly 
stored. 

We  occasionally  undertook  a  pilgrimage  across  the 
moors  to  the  head-waters  of  the  Tees,  taking  a  pony 
along  to  carry  our  traps.  Crossing  over  from  St. 
John's,  Weardale,  and  thence  dropping  down  into 
Teesdale    and    the    Rokeby    country    at    Middleton, 

297 


CLEAR  WATERS 

we  struck  thence  up  the  long  valley  road  by  High 
Force,  and  so  on  to  Cauldron  Snout  and  High-Cup- 
nick.  I  have  through  all  my  life  recalled  the  first 
glimpse  of  Teesdale  from  the  high  moors  upon  the 
eastern  side,  and  the  opening  lines  of  Scott's  description 
of  it  in  Rokeby,  which  poem  people  were  famiHar  with 
in  those  days,  again  and  again  come  back  to  me  : — 

Nor  Tees  alone  in  dawning  bright 
Shall  rush  upon  the  ravished  sight, 
But  many  a  tributary  stream 
Each  for  its  own  dark  glen  shall  gleam. 

For  here  just  below  you  may  see  the  trail  of  *  Silver 
Lune  from  Stainmore  Wild,'  and  further  away  the 
line  of  the  Greta,  of  notable  name  in  those  days 
even  for  Philistines  impervious  to  the  magic  wand  of 
the  Wizard  of  the  North.  For  one  of  the  songs  out  of 
Rokeby  had  been  in  high  favour,  and  our  aunts  and 
mothers,  at  any  rate,  had  been  wont  to  sing  in  drawing- 
rooms  of  *  How  Brignall  woods  were  fresh  and  fair, 
and  Greta  woods  were  green,'  and  how  they  *  would 
rather  rove  with  Edmund  there  than  reign  an  English 
queen.' 

We  used  to  take  our  rods  with  us  and  fish  a  bit  in 
the  Tees  below  Cauldron  Snout,  where  it  thunders 
down  a  ridge  two  hundred  feet  high  from  its  long, 
strange,  sluggish,  meandering  among  the  high  bogs 
known  as  the  Weald.  As  Yorkshire,  Durham,  and 
Westmoreland  all  meet  at  the  foot  of  the  falls,  I  must 
after  all,  I  suppose,  have  wetted  a  line  in  Yorkshire. 
But  I  think  our  expeditions,  particularly  as  they  were 
in  July,  were  prompted  as  much  by  a  love  of  fine  wild 
298 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

country,  which  was  deep-seated  in  all  of  us,  as  by 
any  very  serious  designs  on  trout.  I  think  the  sombre, 
peaty  depths  of  the  Weald  {wheals  I  believe  originally), 
with  possibilities  more  than  hinted  at  by  our  accom- 
plished friend  the  schoolmaster,  was  something  of  a 
magnet,  though  it  proved  fallacious.  But  beyond  a 
few  small  fish  picked  out  of  the  dark  runs  of  the  river 
below  among  the  roundest  and  most  slippery  boulders 
I  ever  encountered  in  my  life,  there  is  really  nothing 
to  be  said,  so  this  excursion  here  into  Teesdale  and 
the  back  of  the  Pennines  may  be  held,  perhaps,  as 
unjustifiable.  A  little  inn  sheltered  us  on  one  occasion. 
But  on  another,  inspired  with  undue  confidence  by  the 
pedagogue,  we  pinned  our  faith  on  a  small  farm- 
house on  the  moor.  Our  welcome,  however,  if  such 
it  can  be  called,  was  of  the  dourest ;  so  much  so,  that 
if  it  had  not  been  nightfall,  and  hunger  and  even 
fatigue,  hardy  as  we  accounted  ourselves,  insistent, 
we  should  have  turned  our  backs  upon  the  rude  in- 
hospitable shelter  and  the  churlish  boors  who  so 
grudgingly  entertained  us  without  a  moment's 
hesitation. 

The  rivers  of  Northumberland  are  fairly  numerous, 
and  the  trouting  burns  more  numerous  still.  I  have 
fished  at  one  time  or  another  in  most  of  the  former 
and  in  some  of  the  latter.  As  to  the  rivers,  I  may 
fairly  say  I  know  them  qua  rivers  from  the  sea  to  their 
source.  For  all  of  them  rise  in  the  Cheviots,  and  all 
but  the  Till  run  eastward  into  the  ocean.  Some 
even  of  the  burns  cut  out  their  own  course  and 
pay  tribute  to  no  lesser  waters  than  those  of  the  North 
Sea.     And  every  burn  and  every  river  in  Northumber- 

299 


CLEAR  WATERS 

land  contains  trout.  Little  more  than  a  dozen  miles 
above  the  pandemonium  of  Newcastle  and  the  alto- 
gether forbidding  look  of  the  tidal  Tyne  with  its 
besmirched  industrial  surroundings  for  a  good  part 
of  that  distance,  trout  and  samlets  may  be  seen  rising 
in  the  clear,  broad,  stony  shallows,  and  with  no  obvious 
reason  under  such  quickly  changed  conditions  why 
they  should  not  be  there  and  thus  disport  themselves. 
The  Tyne,  unless  the  English  share  in  the  lower  Tweed 
be  counted,  is  of  course  by  far  the  largest  river 
in  the  county.  The  Wansbeck,  Coquet,  Aln,  and 
Till  belong  in  size  to  altogether  another  class.  Nay, 
after  the  Tyne  has  split  into  its  north  and  south  forks 
at  Hexham,  and  begun  to  count  seriously  as  a  trout 
and  salmon  river,  either  branch  would  still  more  than 
hold  its  own  in  this  respect  against  any  of  the  sister 
streams.  The  river  at  Hexham  just  below  the  parting 
is  of  quite  noble  width,  though  as  merry  as  a  moor- 
land burn.  The  bridge  requires  at  least  eight  arches 
to  span  its  currents,  and  the  view  across  it  to  the  old 
town  beyond,  crowned  with  its  stately  abbey,  is  one 
to  be  held  ever  in  remembrance. 

If  you  stand  in  the  meadows  a  mile  above,  at  the 
junction  of  the  North  and  South  Tyne,  it  is  not 
difficult  to  understand  why  a  vast  proportion  of  the 
ascending  salmon  take  the  right-hand  turn.  Perhaps 
if  the  waters  were  in  spate  you  would  understand  still 
better,  and  feel  certain  that  if  you  were  a  salmon 
you  would  not  hesitate  for  a  moment ;  for  while 
the  more  southerly  flood  is  running  a  thick  yellowy 
brown,  the  northern  river  is  pouring  in  a  volume  of 
porter-coloured  water  redolent  of  the  moorland  and 
300 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

the  moss.  Both  are  equally  clear  in  normal  weather, 
for  the  South  Tyne,  too,  comes  down  from  clear 
uplands,  but  like  the  Wear  is  slightly  if  not  visibly 
tainted  by  various  mines  and  works  scattered  along 
its  lower  course,  though  its  Arcadian  qualities  and 
sometimes  striking  valley  scenery  are  but  little  affected. 
At  any  rate  it  is  an  infinitely  inferior  trout  and 
salmon  river  to  its  amber-tinted  twin  sister. 

In  company  with  a  friend,  I  once  fished  the  South 
Tyne  for  a  whole  day  under  the  most  superb  conditions 
of  wind  and  water.  The  woods,  the  rocks,  the  perfect 
colour  of  the  buoyant  stream,  the  tempered  sunshine, 
the  balmy  air  coupled  with  our  own  sanguine  natures 
kept  us  from  flagging.  At  the  close  of  the  day  we  had, 
I  think,  about  half  a  dozen  small  trout  between  us. 
To  be  sure  it  was  in  August,  and  much  must  be  forgiven 
that  ill-omened  month,  but  I  always  think  of  it  as  one 
of  the  pleasantest  blank  days  I  ever  had.  I  have  no 
doubt  that  if  we  had  been  up  in  the  higher  waters  in 
AUandale  we  should  have  killed  some  fish,  but  I  am 
talking  now  of  the  big  river,  not  of  its  tributaries  nor 
again  of  its  own  infant  gambols  in  the  hills.  I  had  had 
my  doubts,  to  be  sure,  of  the  class  of  river  at  such  a 
season,  despite  its  fair  appearance.  But  my  friend, 
hailing  from  a  far  south-western  county,  where  trout 
rise  after  a  flood  at  any  and  all  seasons,  egged  me  on. 
He  added,  I  expect,  to  his  store  of  experience !  Our 
luncheon  hour  upon  a  pleasant  shingly  beach  with  a 
fine,  woody  cliff  confronting  us  across  the  delicious 
swirls  of  the  deceptive  river  was  enlivened  by  the 
company  of  a  local  salmon  fisher,  obviously  a  gentle- 
man-at-large.    He  stood  beside  us  for  a  long  while 

301 


CLEAR  WATERS 

without  speaking,  and  as  I  thought  with  a  touch  of 
compassion  in  his  eye.  He  evidently  thought  we  were 
natural  fools  to  be  fly-fishing  for  trout  at  such  a  time. 
But  in  truth  as  it  turned  out  if  there  was  any  sym- 
pathy going  around  to  spare  he  was  the  most  fitting 
recipient  of  it.  He  was  a  tall,  ginger-whiskered  man, 
with  a  salmon-rod  of  the  dimensions  of  a  telegraph 
post,  and  remained  silent  merely  because  no  true 
Northumbrian  ever  makes  the  first  overture  if  he  has 
to  wait  all  day.  When  I  broke  the  ice  he  admitted 
to  having  done  nothing,  though  a  little  consoled  by 
the  report  of  a  fish  having  been  killed  two  days  previ- 
ously at  Haydon  bridge,  which  did  not  suggest  a  high 
standard  for  the  South  Tyne.  Before  we  had  done 
with  him,  however,  he  had  unfolded,  perhaps  not  too 
willingly,  a  tale  beside  which  our  few  hours  of  pleasant 
futility  were  as  nothing ;  for  he  had  fished  the  river 
steadily,  so  far  as  we  could  make  out,  for  years,  and  to 
his  everlasting  credit  admitted  that  he  had  never  yet 
killed  a  salmon  in  it.  Now  a  man  who  will  volun- 
tarily make  that  admission  with  no  earthly  reason  for 
so  doing,  and  every  temptation  to  tell  tall  stories,  is 
much  more  precious  than  a  successful  salmon-fisher. 
Later  on  we  watched  him  work  down  a  fine  pool  below 
us  and  drive  his  line  out  with  all  reasonable  skill  from 
the  telegraph  post,  and  were  forced  to  conclude  that 
either  he  was  one  of  the  unlucky  ones  of  the  earth  or 
that  very  few  salmon  patronised  the  South  Tyne. 
We  hoped,  too,  he  was  a  poet  at  least  and  saw  things 
in  the  moving  waters  and  the  bordering  woods,  and 
so  was  happy. 

But  the  North  Tyne  is  a  very  different  river,  and 
30Z 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

plenty  of  salmon  and  of  sea  trout,  too,  are  killed  when 
the  water  serves.  There  is  also  a  good  stock  of  brown 
trout,  and  the  river  being  valuable  is  rather  closely- 
preserved  for  most  of  its  course.  For  the  last  mile 
or  so  before  the  confluence  the  broad  river,  overhung 
on  both  sides  by  the  woods  of  Warden,  makes  fine 
play,  its  amber  waters  churning  furiously  amid  a 
prodigious  barrier  of  rocks  and  ledges.  It  bisects  the 
Roman  wall  just  above  at  Cholerford,  where  the  exca- 
vated remains  of  the  great  cavalry  station  of  Chesters 
or  Cilurnum  and  its  Roman  bridge  still  in  the  river 
attract  visitors  from  all  parts  of  the  country.  A  little 
railroad  runs  up  the  North  Tyne  for  a  matter  of  some 
thirty  miles,  crossing  eventually  into  Scotland  through 
a  wild  pass  of  the  Cheviots.  It  is  still  better,  however, 
to  pursue  the  river  by  road  if  you  want  to  go  high  up 
the  dale,  as  the  scenery  is  always  interesting,  and  if 
you  care  for  such  things  every  mile  is  marked  by  a 
castle,  a  peel  tower,  or  some  other  martial  relic  of  the 
old  Border  wars  and  raids. 

For  North  Tynedale  and  its  tributaries  was  the  very 
heart  and  centre  of  the  '  Riding  country,'  the  land  of 
the  Herons,  Swinburnes,  Charltons,  Robsons,  and  all 
the  rest  of  them.  So  up  past  Haughton  castle  of  the 
Swinburnes,  in  whose  deep  dungeon  once  upon  a  time 
a  chief  of  the  Armstrongs,  languishing  in  durance  vile, 
was  literally  forgotten,  and  so  died  of  starvation ; 
past  Chipchase,  where  the  Herons  when  official  keepers 
of  Tynedale  kept  their  light  cavalry  police ;  past  the 
hamlet  of  Wark,  where  the  Scottish  judges  of  assize 
sat  when  this  was  part  of  Scotland,  the  river  beside 
you  still  brawling  broad  and  lusty  ;  past  the  mouth  of 


CLEAR  WATERS 

Rede,  with  all  the  bloody  and  romantic  tale  its  streams 
repeat  for  those  who  have  ears  to  hear.  And  thus 
continuing  by  a  somewhat  lessened  stream  for  the 
burns  that  it  has  lost,  though  still  a  broad  one,  you  will 
arrive  at  BeUingham.  A  big  village  much  frequented 
by  sheep  and  collie  dogs,  and  the  metropolis  of  the  dale, 
is  this,  set  in  a  wide-open  bare  country  still  thick  with 
Charltons,  Robsons,  Hedleys,  Telfers,  Dodds,  and  all 
the  old  fighting  and  raiding  names  that  ring  down  the 
whole  garland  of  Border  song.  There  is  a  good  inn  at 
BeUingham,  and  higher  up  the  river  towards  Falstone 
and  Scotland  there  are,  or  were,  some  miles  of  as- 
sociation or  ticket  water.  I  once  spent  a  prodigiously 
hot  fortnight  here.  For  two  days  the  thermometer 
stood  at  ninety  degrees  in  the  shade,  which  for  a  place 
high  up  in  the  heart  of  the  southern  Cheviots  was  a 
trifle  disconcerting.  Fishing,  except  with  a  worm, 
was  out  of  the  question.  However,  I  admit,  and  with- 
out the  slightest  shame,  a  partiality  for  clear  water 
worming  for  trout,  having  done  a  great  deal  of  it  as 
a  young  man  in  the  clear  mountain  streams  of  the 
southern  Alleghanies,  where  the  thick  foliage  exalts 
it  into  something  of  an  art. 

Indeed,  it  is  esteemed  very  much  of  an  art  in  this 
north  country,  not  on  a  level  with  fly-fishing,  to  be 
sure,  but  by  no  means  to  be  dismissed  from  discussion 
as  a  mere  pot-hunting  or  poaching  business.  But 
then  one  fishes  with  a  worm,  or  ought  to  at  times 
and  seasons  when  the  fly  is  practically  useless,  and  only 
then  upon  rivers  which  are  suitable  for  it.  I  should 
never,  for  example,  have  the  slightest  desire  to  worm 
the  Kennet  or  the  Wylie  even  if  I  had  otherwise 
304 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

embarked  upon  a  career  of  crime.  Nor  do  I  ever  feel  the 
least  inclination,  even  at  the  most  depressing  moments, 
to  fish  worm  in  what  might  be  called  midway  rivers, 
such  as  the  Teme,  the  Monnow,  or  the  Lugg.  It  is 
the  hard-bottomed,  stony  mountain  rivers  and  burns, 
with  their  wilder  seeming  trout  that  alone  invites  the 
clear-water  worm  fisherman  of  the  right  sort.  And 
fishing  worm  up  the  middle  of  a  good-sized  river, 
though  I  have  done  by  comparison  little  of  it,  is  more 
interesting  to  me  than  worming  a  burn,  of  which  I 
have  done  a  great  deal.  I  need  hardly  say  it  has  been 
always  widely  practised  in  the  Border  country.  Far 
too  much  so  indeed,  for  instead  of  confining  the  worm 
to  the  three  summer  months,  it  is  freely  used  in  the 
fly  season — in  April,  May,  and  early  June,  on  the  open 
waters.  Worm  fishing  in  April  is  most  unsportsman- 
like, almost  as  bad  as  worming  in  discoloured  fiood 
water — the  very  lowest  form  of  trouting.  But  in  a 
river  like  the  North  Tyne,  where  the  trout  cease  to 
rise,  I  fancy  early  in  June  and  in  a  normal  summer  the 
river  runs  low  and  clear  for  most  of  the  time  ;  there, 
surely,  up-stream  worm-fishing  provides  a  worthy  and 
skilful  method  of  enjoying  many  pleasant  days,  and 
killing  fish  in  the  very  pink  of  condition,  that  though 
they  might  rise  again  in  September,  would  be  by  that 
time  falling  sadly  away.  Not  many  south  or  west 
country  fishermen  know  much  of  this  branch  of  trout- 
ing, and  most  are  inclined,  as  I  have  said  before,  to 
look  on  all  worm-fishing  as  poaching. 

Personally  I  do  not  like  Stewart  tackle.     And  by 
the  same  token  that  great  fisherman  did  not  use  the 
worm  very  much  himself,  and  was,  I  think,   rather 
u  305 


CLEAR  WATERS 

amused  to  find  some  time  before  his  death  an  arrange- 
ment of  hooks,  though  no  doubt  he  did  use  it,  called 
by  his  name.  Every  trout  fisherman  in  England  and 
America  knows  the  Stewart  tackle  ;  not  one  in  fifty 
ever  heard  of  the  great  Border  angler  who  died  forty 
years  ago.  I  once  found  myself  fishing  beside  him, 
and  felt  the  same  thrill  I  had  experienced  a  year  before 
at  being  in  with  W.  G.  Grace  in  a  country  match,  who, 
by  the  way,  returned  my  devotional  attitude  by 
running  me  out  most  flagrantly. 

I  prefer  the  single  hook  myself,  perhaps  from  long 
use  of  it  in  North  America.  In  burns  one  mainly 
fishes  the  pools,  as  they  are  small  and  all  astir.  But 
in  rivers  the  modus  operandi  is  to  wade  up  stream  and 
fish  the  shallower  rapids,  the  quick  waters,  and  the 
eddies.  Rippling,  stony  shallows  a  foot  deep  that 
you  would  hardly  throw  a  fly  on  are  likely  places  with 
the  worm.  A  very  stiff,  light  fly-rod  of  about  eleven 
feet  is  my  preference  for  this  work,  and  a  fine  cast  of, 
say,  six  feet.  A  line  a  little  longer  than  the  rod  can 
be  readily  cast  by  various  methods,  and  that  without 
making  any  appreciable  commotion  on  the  water, 
which  is  generally  itself  in  a  more  or  less  lively  state. 
One  throws  either  straight  up  stream,  or  diagonally 
up  to  the  right  or  left,  but  you  will  hook  most  of  your 
fish  right  ahead  of  you.  A  trout  fisherman's  instinct, 
whether  used  to  the  worm  or  not,  tells  him  his  distance, 
and  when  and  where  he  is  out  of  sight,  though  it  is 
remarkable  how  closely  you  can  approach  trout  in 
broken  water  from  immediately  below  them.  The 
novice,  in  other  respects  trout-wise,  soon  learns  by  ex- 
perience the  sort  of  water  in  which  fish  take  a  worm 
306 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

best,  and  speaking  generally,  it  is  not  such  as  he  would 
devote  much  attention  to  with  a  fly  in  the  same  state 
of  the  river.  When,  the  worm  drops,  it  must  be  allowed 
to  float  down  naturally  towards  you  uninfluenced  by 
the  rod.  A  check  to  the  movement  of  the  gut  is 
usually  the  only  visible  sign  of  a  bite,  not  always  easy 
to  see  in  quick,  broken  water,  though  it  is  often 
accompanied  by  that  other  subconscious  sensation  of 
touch.  It  is  well  to  wait  three  or  four  seconds,  with 
a  single  hook,  at  any  rate,  before  striking.  Sometimes, 
however,  the  fish  will  move  swiftly  up-stream  directly 
it  seizes  the  worm,  when  the  bite  is  of  course  much 
more  obvious.  It  is  quite  pretty  work,  though,  and 
perhaps  not  so  easy  of  accomplishment  as  it  may 
appear  from  this  bald  description.  It  is  well  to  be 
up  and  doing  betimes  in  bright  weather,  though  the 
precise  hour  may  be  left  to  the  inclinations  of  the 
angler.  But  if  on  the  water  by  six  or  seven,  you  can 
generally  count  on  the  fish  taking  tUl  about  ten  o'clock ; 
for  I  am  not  concerned  with  the  all-night  fisherman, 
under  which  head  fall  so  many  of  the  working  folk 
of  the  north  country,  who  will  get  into  the  river  after 
supper  and  fish  up  many  miles  through  the  night 
and  early  morning  hours,  and  be  back  by  train  or 
cycle  to  their  workshop,  mine,  or  factory  at  the 
regulation  hour.  This  is  a  destructive  business,  and 
to  be  deplored,  particularly  as  this  type  of  angler 
generally  baskets  everything,  however  small.  It  has 
been  a  regular  practice,  however,  for  all  time  that 
matters  up  here,  though  there  are  signs  that  in  the 
general  interests  of  the  fishing  public  some  limits 
may  yet  be  set  to  it. 

307 


CLEAR  WATERS 

There  is  little  of  this  in  the  North  Tyne,  for  the 
simple  reason  that  the  river  is  nearly  all  preserved. 
I  had  the  privilege  on  this  occasion  of  a  mile  of  salmon 
water  belonging  to  a  friend.  As  salmon-fishing  was 
out  of  the  question,  he  kindly  allowed  me  to  ply  the 
worm  for  trout,  and  by  due  perseverance  in  early 
rising  I  had  some  very  fair  dishes,  some  of  the  fish 
running  nearly  up  to  a  pound  in  weight,  and  was 
home  again  before  the  heat  of  the  day  had  well  begun, 
the  only  drawback  to  the  entertainment  being  a  white 
bull  of  militant  disposition.  It  is  surprising  even  in 
the  matter  of  trouting  what  creatures  of  habit  we 
are,  and  how  susceptible  to  influences  and  traditions. 
Having  wandered  rather  widely  myself,  I  may  fairly 
claim  some  catholicity  in  such  matters,  and  can,  at 
any  rate,  feel  the  atmosphere  of  all  these  various 
schools  of  opinion.  I  know  well  that  the  objection 
to  the  worm  is  very  strong  in  many  parts  of  the  country 
where  streams  are  identical  with  those  of  the  north. 
Nobody  knows  much  about  it,  to  be  sure,  but  there 
is  a  sort  of  tradition  against  it  among  gentleman 
anglers.  But  in  the  north  there  is  no  such  general 
feeHng,  whether  a  man  cares  for  it  personally  or  not. 
It  is  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course,  and  recognised 
as  a  scientific  branch  of  the  trouting  art.  It  is  only 
a  pity  that  the  habit  of  using  the  worm  in  the  spring 
is  not  more  deprecated,  and  wherever  possible  stopped. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  over-preserving  in  the 
southern  half  of  Northumberland,  or,  I  should  perhaps 
say,  preservation  of  the  useless  and  fussy  kind ;  this 
is  partly  due  to  so  much  of  its  trouting  water  being 
included  in  grouse-shooting  tenancies,  which  nearly 
308 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

always  closes  up  even  the  smallest  burn,  regardless  of 
fish  logic  ;  and  partly  perhaps  to  the  prevalence  of  the 
novus  homo  on  a  large  scale,  to  whom  the  mere  sensa- 
tion of  ownership  carries  with  it  an  undiscriminating 
desire  to  exercise  its  extreme  rights,  even  when 
perfectly  useless.  I  always  remember  a  day  granted 
me  in  a  big  burn  by  a  rather  magnificent  gentleman 
of  this  type  as  an  illustration  of  what  I  mean.  The 
most  respectable  stranger  would  not,  I  am  sure,  have 
stood  the  ghost  of  a  chance  of  getting  a  permit,  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  my  introduction  was  rather  an 
intimate  one,  and  it  produced  a  letter  giving  me  one 
day  in  the  precious  burn,  of  which  there  was  about 
three  miles,  very  rough  and  heavily  wooded  in  char- 
acter. I  don't  suppose  the  owner  ever  fished  it  in 
his  life,  though  very  Hkely  he  had  a  salmon  river  in 
Norway,  to  which  he  proceeded  in  his  own  steam 
yacht.  The  water  was  in  good  order,  and  it  was 
a  beautiful  stream  and  of  a  fair  size.  I  fished  up 
the  whole  three  miles,  chiefly  in  the  water,  for  the 
foliage,  which  was  beautiful,  intrenched  it  nearly 
everywhere.  It  took  me  about  eight  hours  to  cover  it. 
I  am  quite  certain  that  I  rose  over  a  thousand  fish, 
for  they  were  coming  extraordinarily  short,  and  con- 
stantly two  at  a  time,  and  I  am  equally  certain  that 
I  did  not  see  six  of  a  quarter  of  a  pound  in  weight 
the  whole  day.  The  little  river  was  simply  crammed 
with  fingerlings,  and  hopelessly  over-stocked,  a  state 
of  things  I  should  say,  unnatural  to  it,  and  indeed,  as 
I  was  told,  of  recent  development.  Yet  my  friend's 
friend  gave  me  one  day  with  great  ceremony.  It  is 
true  that  one  day  was  enough,  and  more  than  enough, 

309 


CLEAR  WATERS 

so  far  as  fishing  went ;  but  that  is  not  the  point. 
If  this  stream  were  thrown  open  for  three  years  it 
might  possibly  improve.  It  would,  at  any  rate,  enter- 
tain the  public,  and  there  is  nothing  on  its  shores, 
being  quite  wild,  that  the  humble  angler,  even  if 
so  disposed,  could  conceivably  damage.  But  such  a 
suggestion,  I  am  quite  sure,  would  be  received  with 
horror  and  indignation. 

To  return,  however,  to  the  North  Tyne.  There  is 
another  fifteen  miles  of  the  river  above  Bellingham, 
before  it  shrinks  to  a  wee  burn  amid  the  wilds  of 
Kielder,  the  Duke  of  Northumberland's  shooting- 
box  on  the  Scottish  border.  The  little  railway  ascends 
the  valley,  as  I  have  said,  and  a  tolerable  road  follows 
the  river,  constantly  reinforced  by  moorland  burns,  to 
its  source.  How  much  ticket  water  there  is  about 
Falstone,  where  there  is  also  an  inn,  I  do  not  know,  but 
I  think  some  miles,  and  it  looks  very  attractive.  This 
is  in  truth  a  great  country.  Once  mounted  up  on  the 
ledge  of  moorland  that  on  its  south-western  side  over- 
looks the  dale,  all  beyond  is  solitude  of  a  most  im- 
pressive kind — a  great  waste  of  heath,  peat-moss,  and 
sheep  pasture,  a  low,  rolling  prairie  plateau  rather  than 
hills,  with  the  high  bluffs  that  carry  the  Roman  wall 
along  their  craggy  summits,  upon  the  hither  side  of  the 
South  Tyne,  dimly  cutting  the  sky-line.  In  all  this 
wide  angle  between  the  two  forks  of  Tyne,  a  dozen 
to  twenty  miles  across,  with  its  base  resting  on  the 
lofty  hills  of  the  Scottish  border,  there  is  practically 
nothing  but  a  shepherd's  cottage  standing  forlorn  here 
and  there,  and  along  its  edges  the  occasional  home- 
stead of  some  great  sheep  farmer.  Grouse,  plovers, 
310 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

curlews,  wildfowl,  and  black-faced  sheep  are  the  only 
other  occupants  of  the  waste,  while  colonies  of  small 
black-headed  gulls  breed  by  its  little  tarns,  and  the 
larger  non-gregarious  species,  hated  of  the  grouse  pre- 
server, haunts  its  spaces  and  works  havoc  by  the  way  on 
burns  and  spawning  beds.  This  was  in  fact  the  wild 
waste  over  which  the  Roman  sentinels  looked  north- 
ward for  some  three  centuries.  And  as  you  stand  on 
that  great  natural  barrier  to-day,  on  the  broad  top  of 
the  remnant  of  the  wall  which  continuously  caps  it, 
and  look  out  towards  the  North  Tyne,  you  might  well 
fancy  for  the  all-pervading  desolation  that  the  centuries 
had  stood  still. 

Upon  the  other  side  of  the  river  high  moors  and 
sheepwalks  heave  away  to  the  parallel  valley  of  the 
Rede,  where  Hotspur  and  Douglas  met  in  the  im- 
mortal fight  of  Otterburn,  and  a  hundred  other  for- 
gotten heroes  fought  and  bled.  I  remember  how 
gloriously  on  the  eve  of  these  warm  days  the  sun  used 
to  sink  below  the  distant  mountain  rampart  which 
divides  the  kingdoms  once  so  bitterly  hostile,  and  how 
quickly  on  its  steps  the  harvest  moon  later  on  rekindled 
this  great,  silent,  mysterious  country  with  a  pale  reful- 
gence of  the  day.  There  are  no  tourists  here.  You 
are  as  far  perhaps  from  the  madding  crowd  as  you 
can  betake  yourself  anywhere  in  England,  by  rail  at 
any  rate,  though  trains  are  so  few  that  they  really 
amount  to  nothing  as  a  disturbing  factor.  I  doubt, 
too,  if  motorists  much  fancy  the  road  which  leads  over 
Kielder  into  Liddesdale.  A  favourite  route,  however — 
indeed  one  of  the  main  arteries  into  Scotland — ^lies  up 
Redesdale,  and  over  the  Carter  Fell,  passing  the  great 

3" 


CLEAR  WATERS 

reservoir  at  the  head  of  Rede,  which  has  been  made 
for  Newcastle,  and  is  full,  by  the  way,  of  free-rising 
trout. 

It  is  a  great  change  from  here  to  the  country  of  the 
Till,  the  *  sullen  Till '  of  Scott's  Marmion.     Rising  in 
the  Cheviots,  about  half-way  down  their  course,  and 
pointing  for  the  eastern  shore,  it  seems  to  flinch  in 
almost  infancy  from  the  prospect  of  breaking  through 
the  isolated  block  of  upland  that  may  be  called  the 
Chillingham  moors,   a  feat  performed  by  its  cradle 
neighbour,  the  Aln.     But  the  Till  is  a  gentle  stream, 
nearly  always  ill-suited  for  aggressive  action  and  break- 
ing its  way  through  mountain  ridges.     So  it  turns 
away  to  the  open  north,  and,  running  for  some  miles 
under  its  cradle  name  of  Breamish,  waters  Chilling- 
ham  on  its  way ;  and  from  thence,  in  a  succession  of 
sinuous  bends,  prattles  cheerily  on  to  the  broad,  flat 
pasture-lands    below    Wooler.     Here,     beneath    the 
shadow  of  the  most  northerly  and  loftiest  section  of 
the  Cheviots,  it  sets  its  face  through  endless  green 
flats  for  Flodden  field  and  the  Tweed.     And  as  if 
always  eager  to  prolong  its  easy  journeying  through 
these  fat  haughs,  it  twists  from  edge  to  edge  for  no 
apparent  purpose,  and  with  a  sinuosity  that  cuts  a 
most  eccentric  figure  on  a  map.     RippHng  gently  over 
gravelly  shallows  of  singularly  lustrous  colouring  and 
varied  hue,  it  loiters  again  and  again,  so  sHght  is  its 
fall  in  sullen  deeps,  or  dubs,  into  which  the  soft,  over- 
hanging red  banks  seem  for  ever  toppling.     Unlike 
any  other  Northumbrian  river,  the  Till  might  almost 
have  been  imported  straight  from  Herefordshire,  so 
much  in  its  banks,  its  colouring,  its  paces,  and  its 

312 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

bottom  does  it  resemble  the  Lugg  or  the  Teme.  Like 
these  rivers,  too,  when  it  is  absolutely  forced,  as  in  its 
last  mile  or  two,  to  travel  through  a  gorge  on  a  rocky- 
bottom,  it  can  play  the  part  of  a  mountain  river  as 
well  as  any. 

Like  the  Teme  and  the  Lugg,  too,  the  Till  is  a  great 
grayling  stream.  But  the  adjective  in  the  Till's  case 
requires  a  deal  of  qualification.  The  difference  indeed 
between  the  two  Welsh  border  rivers  and  this  one  is 
interesting.  The  former  are  natural  grayling  streams 
in  which  trout  and  grayling  always  flourished  side  by 
side,  with  no  perceptible  clashing  of  interests.  But 
less  than  twenty  years  ago  there  was  not  a  grayling 
in  the  Till  or  anywhere  near  it.  It  was  a  very  good 
trout  stream  indeed.  It  is  now  crammed  with  grayling, 
which  were  introduced,  and  the  trouting  is  almost 
worthless  from  below  Chillingham  down  to  Ford  at 
any  rate.  Worse  still,  the  grayling  run  rather  small — 
three  to  the  pound  would,  I  think,  be  a  flattering 
estimate.  Still  worse,  they  can  hardly  be  called  good 
risers.  Yet  in  its  principal  tributary,  the  Glen,  which 
runs  in  at  Ewart  park,  and  is  also  full  of  grayling,  the 
latter  rise  splendidly.  There  are  two  or  three  miles 
of  association  fishing  in  the  Till  below  Wooler,  at 
which  picturesque  Cheviot  town  I  once  spent  an 
autumn  month.  It  was  a  dry  season,  and  consequently 
perfect  grayling  weather.  I  frequently  fished  this 
stretch  as  well  as  some  private  water  below  it  with 
fly — as  pleasant  and  easy  a  river  of  its  kind  to  fish  as 
you  may  find  anywhere.  I  don't  think  I  ever  killed 
ten  at  one  venture,  and  sometimes  my  efforts  were  next 
to  useless  though  the  river  was  stiff  with  fish.     The 

313 


CLEAR  WATERS 

natives  were  mainly  worming,  so  I  could  not  make 
comparisons.  But  I  had  a  day  in  the  Glen,  which  in 
the  lower  part  where  I  fished  it  is  of  similar  quality  to 
the  main  stream,  and  I  killed  thirty-four  fish  weighing 
sixteen  pounds,  and  gave  up  before  I  had  finished  either 
the  day  or  the  water,  for  the  simple  reason  that  I 
couldn't  carry  any  more.  This  was  some  years  ago. 
During  this  past  summer  a  friend  of  mine  and  excellent 
fisherman  went  to  Wooler,  where,  by  the  way,  there  is 
now  a  capital  hotel.  His  experience  of  the  Till  was 
precisely  mine.  He,  too,  had  a  day  in  the  Glen  and 
basketed  seventy.  They  did  not  run  so  large  as  mine, 
being  earlier  in  the  season,  but  included  a  good  many 
trout  and  a  sea  trout  or  two. 

Where  grayling  are  not  indigenous,  they  prove  but 
a  doubtful  blessing  to  a  trout  stream  in  which  they 
thrive.  They  have  ruined  a  large  part  of  the  Till, 
and  except  to  the  worm  fisher  provided  a  very  poor 
substitute  as  risers.  They  have  gone  far  to  ruin  the 
Glen,  so  far  as  they  have  succeeded  in  ascending  it. 
And  the  Glen  was  one  of  the  very  finest  trout  streams 
on  the  whole  Border.  That  well-known  Border  fisher- 
man, the  late  Mr.  Henderson,  author  of  My  Life  as  an 
Angler^  gave  it,  all  things  considered,  the  place  of 
honour  among  Northumbrian  streams.  If  the  grayling 
furnish  but  indifferent  baskets  to  the  fly  fisherman  on 
the  Till,  they  provide  the  devotee  of  the  *  running 
worm  and  tooth-pick  float '  abundant  sport.  This 
is  a  Yorkshire  practice,  and  is  something  of  an  art  in 
itself.  I  have  watched  its  professors  at  work,  and 
with  much  interest.  The  water  selected  is  a  running 
gravelly  stream,  such  as  the  Till  abounds  in,  the  hook 

3H 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

is  of  the  smallest,  mounted  on  a  cast  of  the  finest 
drawn  gut,  and  the  float  of  the  diminutive  pattern 
colloquially  known  as  a  tooth-pick.  The  modus  operandi 
is  to  let  the  worm  trail  along  close  to  the  bottom, 
and  to  strike  at  the  very  first  twitch  of  the  tiny  float. 
The  fine  quality  of  the  gut  makes  striking  a  delicate 
operation,  while  a  strong  November  or  December 
grayling  will  for  the  same  reason  put  up  a  big  fight. 
And  these  are  the  months  most  affected  by  the  artists 
of  this  craft.  The  local  fishermen  were  sedulously 
cultivating  it  when  I  was  last  on  the  Till,  fired  by  the 
performances  of  two  experts  from  Yorkshire,  who, 
they  assured  me,  had  taken  twenty  or  thirty  pounds 
of  grayling  in  a  day  from  two  or  three  hundred  yards 
of  water.  Possibly  a  large  company  of  qualified  locals 
proceeding  at  that  rate  have  reduced  the  stock  of 
grayling  in  the  Till,  but  I  doubt  it.  Salmon,  sea 
trout,  and  bull  trout  run  up  the  river  and  its  tributaries 
in  the  summer  and  autumn,  though  I  do  not  think 
are  taken  in  very  appreciable  numbers.  It  is  quite 
a  sight  to  watch  the  latter  leaping  the  dam  on  the 
Wooler  burn,  a  large  confluent  of  the  Till,  which  runs 
down  from  the  Cheviots,  and  not,  I  think,  patronised 
by  grayling  for  its  impetuous  character. 

My  friend  and  neighbour  above  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  a  fine  basket  of  grayling  on  the  Glen — 
the  first,  by  the  way,  he  had  ever  caught  in  his  life — 
is  a  man  to  whom  notable  feats  have  been  frequently 
vouchsafed,  and  he  had  a  successful  adventure  with 
a  sea  trout  a  day  or  two  after  on  the  same  river,  the 
like  of  which  I  have  never  known.  As  the  fish  is  snug 
in  a  glass  case  within  a  few  hundred  yards  of  me  as  I 

315 


CLEAR  WATERS 

write,  with  the  fly  that  captured  him  decorating  the 
spot  where  he  was  hooked,  I  may  tell  of  the  adventure, 
albeit  another  man's,  with  a  clear  conscience.  My 
friend  was  bred  a  fisherman  from  youth  up  in  that 
noble  county  of  Brecon,  upon  the  banks  of  the  Wye 
and  Yrfon.  I  was  very  glad  to  have  been  the  indirect 
means  of  providing  him  with  one  of  those  adventures 
with  which  fortune  seems  to  favour  him,  and  that 
he  is  well  qualified  not  to  let  slip.  For  on  the  occasion 
in  question — only  the  other  day,  in  fact — ^he  was  fishing 
some  private  water  near  Coupland  castle,  up  the  Glen, 
and  above  the  habitat  of  the  grayling.  Being  August, 
and  the  trout,  though  the  water  was  in  condition, 
proving  sulky,  the  moving  of  a  sea  trout  prompted 
him  to  put  on  a  small  sea-trout  fly.  Shortly  after- 
wards he  rose  and  hooked,  as  it  so  proved,  in  the  side, 
and  much  nearer  the  gills  than  the  tail,  what  he  soon 
took  for  granted  to  be  a  salmon.  The  Glen  here  is  a 
small  stream  readily  commanded  by  an  average  length 
of  line  on  a  ten-foot  rod,  which  was  in  fact  on  this 
occasion  my  friend's  weapon.  The  scene  of  action 
was  tolerably  open,  though  with  bushes  here  and 
there  on  the  very  considerable  stretch  over  which  the 
battle  was  waged.  He  soon  saw  that  he  had  some- 
thing like  a  ten-pounder  on,  and  quickly  discovered 
that  it  was  hooked  in  the  side,  a  pretty  formidable 
prospect  in  a  small  stream  not  free  of  bushes  with  light 
tackle.  The  encounter  lasted  an  hour  and  a  half. 
The  fish  leaped  continually.  Once  he  jumped  clean 
into  the  middle  of  an  alder  bush,  and  by  the  mercy 
of  providence,  who  watches  over  the  fortunate  to  whom, 
like  my  friend,  are  granted  great  adventures,  fell 
316 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

through  the  foliage  into  the  water  again  without 
mishap  !  Being  out  for  small  trout,  my  friend  had  no 
landing-net,  and  ultimately,  to  cut  short  the  story, 
and  at  a  very  long  distance  from  where  he  hooked  the 
fish,  he  tailed  it  successfully  in  a  suitable  place.  It 
proved  to  be  a  sea  trout  weighing  nine  pounds,  the 
largest  that  had  ever  been  killed  in  that  country.  It 
needs  no  telling  that  Wooler  was  agog  with  the  event, 
particularly  the  other  fishermen  staying  at  the  hotel. 
Some  of  them,  not  a  little  jealous  that  a  stranger 
from  the  far  south  had  achieved  such  a  triumph, 
were  sufficiently  lacking  in  logic  and  humour  to  lay 
ingenuous  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  fish  had  been  foul- 
hooked  !  If  it  had  not  been,  the  capture  would  be  a 
noteworthy  local  incident,  but  assuredly  not  worth 
the  telling  here.  Such  a  fish  might,  of  course,  have 
been  hooked  by  any  one.  If  fastened  in  the  mouth 
it  might  have  been  landed  by  any  good  fisherman, 
but  a  small  hook  in  the  side  of  such  a  powerful  fish 
is  quite  another  matter.  I  frankly  admit  I  envy  my 
friend  his  performance  immensely,  though  I  trust 
ungrudgingly,  and  I  am  glad  to  think  that  I  can  look 
upon  that  fish  any  day. 

His  other  adventure  was  of  a  different  character,  and 
took  place  two  or  three  years  ago  in  Brittany,  where 
he  was  sketching,  though  with  a  trout  rod,  of  course, 
among  his  effects.  Lured  by  representations  of  a 
fictitious  or  over-sanguine  character  and  the  apparent 
moderation  of  the  figure,  he  rented  a  stretch  of  what 
under  happier  circumstances  no  doubt  would  have 
been  a  trout  stream.  It  soon  became  evident  that 
whatever  it  might  once  have  been,  it  no  longer  merited 

317 


CLEAR  WATERS 

such  a  designation.  There  was  nothing  in  that ;  many 
of  us  have  been  taken  in  by  the  alluring  look  of  Norman 
and  Breton  streams  and  their  eloquent  local  advocates. 
I  was  once  myself  granted  permission  by  its  absentee 
proprietor  to  fish  a  lovely  purling  stream  in  Normandy. 
Indeed  there  was  a  keeper  on  the  river  bank,  and  I  had 
a  letter  to  him,  so  of  course  considered  myself  in  clover. 
That  keeper  was  well  worth  knowing,  for  he  was  a  great 
original,  so  also  was  he,  I  fear,  a  scandalously  unfaithful 
steward.  He  talked  rather  big  about  the  poachers, 
*  the  bracconiers.^  When  I  asked  him  how  he  handled 
them  he  took  down  a  cavalry  sabre  from  over  the 
chimney,  drew  it  from  its  sheath,  and  waved  it  in 
dramatic  fashion.  I  soon  discovered  that  though  it 
was  happy  May  time  there  were  practically  no  trout 
in  the  stream,  whereupon  my  innkeeper  informed  me 
as  a  dead  secret  that  he  could  have  told  me  that  before, 
which  was  annoying,  and  furthermore  that  the  water 
was  regularly  netted  by  poachers,  the  keeper  himself 
taking  a  leading  hand  in  the  operation. 

But  to  return  to  my  friend's  much  more  exciting 
story — two  days  before  his  return  to  England,  having 
abandoned  in  disgust  his  leased  fishing,  he  was  walking 
by  the  side  of  quite  a  large  river,  the  name  of  which 
I  forget,  but  he  describes  it  as  about  the  size  of  one 
of  our  larger  chalk  streams,  and  of  rather  deep,  slow, 
gliding  current.  The  populace,  and  it  was  near  a  town, 
plied  their  rude  art  upon  it  with  worm,  grasshopper, 
and  suchlike  lures  attached  to  the  clumsiest  tackle. 
And  they  were  all  after  trout,  the  river  being  a  natural 
trout  stream.  But  they  scarcely  ever  caught  any- 
thing, and  what  inspired  my  friend  to  think  of  making 

318 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

one  of  such  a  company  under  such  unpromising  con- 
ditions he  hardly  knows  himself.  But  at  any  rate  the 
next  day  he  brought  his  rod  and,  luckily,  his  creel  and 
landing-net  along  on  the  off  chance  of  catching  a  trout. 
He  put  up  a  fine  cast  and  two  small  flies  and  proceeded 
to  fish  down  stream,  being  by  the  way  a  great  believer 
in  that  method.  To  his  amazement  he  began  to  catch 
fish  almost  at  once,  and  good  ones  too,  and  more 
wonderful  still,  to  shorten  the  tale,  he  had  one  of  the 
days  of  his  life.  He  filled  his  basket  with  beautiful 
trout  from  half  a  pound  to  a  pound  in  weight,  the 
natives  on  the  bank  in  the  meanwhile  plying  their  lures 
in  vain,  and  regarding  him  with  amazed  disgust.  His 
catch  supplied  the  whole  hotel  where  he  was  one  of  a 
large  number  of  guests,  being  August  time,  which 
makes  his  good  fortune  still  more  remarkable.  Even 
this,  however,  was  not  all.  It  might  conceivably  have 
been  one  of  those  rare  days  in  which  all  the  fish  in  the 
river  seem  to  go  mad,  but  my  friend  went  back  the 
next  day  and  repeated  the  performance.  This  was 
the  last  occasion  on  which  he  saw  the  river  as  his  time 
was  up.  He  hopes  to  return  some  day  !  The  French 
anglers,  some  of  whom  with  empty  baskets  watched 
this  astonishing  performance,  were  thunderstruck,  and 
no  wonder,  and  put  the  Englishman  down  as  a 
sorcerer ;  for  the  Bretons  doubtless  believe  in  such 
survivals.  With  the  second  day  they  began  to  show 
marked  signs  of  disapproval,  and  tried  to  frighten 
him  with  stories  of  a  malignant  bull,  and  no  doubt 
they  breathed  freely  when  they  found  the  magician 
had  really  gone. 

It  is  a  quite  remarkable  instance  of  how  fish  that 

319 


CLEAR  WATERS 

have  been  worried  to  death  with  clumsy  methods  will 
come  with  avidity  at  fine  tackle  properly  presented 
to  them.  If  it  had  been  a  dry-fly  performance,  it 
would  not  have  been  so  extraordinary.  But  my  friend 
fished  wet  as  related,  and  down  stream  with  two  flies. 
I  tell  him  it  is  a  mercy  his  wife  was  with  him.  For 
though  a  wife's  evidence  in  criminal  cases  is,  I  believe, 
inadmissible  on  her  husband's  behalf,  in  fishing  cases 
I  regard  it  as  much  the  most  valuable  of  all.  Judging 
from  my  own  experience  of  anglers'  wives  their  presence 
is  the  most  effective  curb  to  the  natural  growth  of 
a  fish  story,  and  they  have  a  marvellous  memory 
for  blank  days  which  their  men-folk  have  forgotten. 
The  hero  of  these  well-authenticated  triumphs  is,  as 
I  said,  a  believer  in  down-stream  fishing.  Occasionally 
he  goes  into  Dorsetshire  and  fishes  a  dry-fly  water  for 
heavy  trout  with  some  dry-fly  friends.  He  tells  me 
he  often  kills  more  than  they  do,  with  two  wet  flies 
down  stream.  I  have  tried  to  make  him  understand 
the  egregious  nature  of  the  crime  he  is  perpetrating. 
But  it  is  of  no  use,  for  he  doesn't  even  know  what  a 
dry-fly  purist  means. 

Higher  up  the  Till  in  the  ChiUingham  castle  water 
the  trout  would  appear  to  hold  their  own  more  success- 
fully against  the  grayling,  judging  from  a  fair  basket 
I  once  killed  there.  Fortunately  for  any  angler  who 
has  that  privilege  the  river  doesn't  run  through  the 
park.  A  Welsh  bull  is  bad  enough,  but  from  what 
I  have  seen  and  heard  of  these  famous  wild  cattle  a 
day's  fishing  among  them  would  not  justify  the  classic 
designation  of  angling  as  the  contemplative  man's 
recreation. 
320 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

The  great  steep  wall  of  the  Cheviot,  rising  here  to 
two  thousand  seven  hundred  feet,  beautifully  over- 
hangs the  flat  vale  of  the  meandering  Till,  and  but  a 
mill  or  so  distant  from  its  course.  The  rugged  hill 
of  Homildon  is  the  first  buttress  of  the  range,  rock- 
ribbed  and  heath-crowned,  where  the  long-bow 
achieved  probably  the  greatest  triumph  in  its  whole 
history ;  for  here  seventeen  hundred  trained  archers, 
mainly  Welsh  mercenaries  under  Hotspur,  utterly 
paralysed,  disorganised,  and  finally  routed  a  brave 
Scottish  army  of  ten  thousand  men,  by  their  terrible 
and  disciplined  shooting.  In  the  meadows,  too,  by 
the  Till  under  Wooler  lay  the  English  army  the  night 
before  the  eve  of  Flodden,  soaked  to  the  skin  and  out 
of  provisions.  High  above  the  river,  seven  miles  to 
the  northward,  the  ridge  of  Flodden  rears  its  fir- 
crowned  head,  easily  visible  from  here,  as  were  the 
camp-fires  and  tents  of  the  Scottish  army  on  its  summit 
to  the  victors  of  that  immortal  fight.  And  as  we  travel 
down  stream  towards  it  for  three  miles,  the  Glen  comes 
winding  in  beside  the  wide  woods  of  Ewart,  planted 
by  Count  Horace  St.  Paul,  who,  banished  in  youth  for 
killing  a  man  in  a  duel,  went  from  its  peel  tower  manor- 
house  to  achieve  fame  as  a  soldier  and  diplomatist  in  the 
Austrian  service,  eventually  returning  to  live  and  die 
under  its  roof  about  a  century  ago.  And  lower  down 
still,  where  the  river  growing  deeper  and  slower  earned 
from  Scott  its  title  of  the  '  Sullen  Till,'  we  have  Ford 
castle,  where  King  James  slept  before  the  battle  of 
Flodden,  and  where  Surrey  on  the  morning  of  the  fight 
crossed  the  swollen  ford.  And  then,  leaving  on  our 
left  the  long  slope  of  Branxton  hill  on  which  eighty 
X  321 


CLEAR  WATERS 

thousand  men  met  in  the  fiercest  combat  ever  waged 
on  English  soil,  when  twenty  thousand  fell  in  about 
three  hours,  we  are  soon  at  Twizel  bridge  within  a 
short  mile  of  Tweed. 

Here,  for  some  distance  above  and  again  below  the 
broad  stone  arch  over  which  the  advanced  right  wing 
of  Surrey's  army  crossed  to  double  back  on  Flodden, 
the  Till,  abandoning  her  gentle  habit,  moves  more 
briskly  through  woody  gorges.  And,  as  might  be 
expected,  the  trout  again  assert  themselves  not  only 
in  numbers  but  in  size,  probably  reinforced  from  the 
neighbouring  Tweed.  A  local  friend  of  mine  not  so 
very  long  ago  had  a  wonderful  day  here  in  the  castle 
water,  including  a  dozen  or  more  fish  of  a  pound 
weight  and  upwards.  Mr.  Henderson  tells  of  a  day 
affording  a  succession  of  much  heavier  trout  even 
than  this  seventy  years  ago.  The  roach  nuisance,  too, 
is  being  felt  in  the  Till,  which  is  not  surprising,  seeing 
that  it  has  become  a  very  serious  matter  in  the  Tweed, 
much  worse  indeed  than  the  grayling,  whose  increas- 
ing prominence  in  the  great  Border  river  is  deplored 
by  many.  The  roach  is  supposed  to  have  been 
introduced  by  pike  fishermen  using  it  as  live  bait. 
Their  fecundity  is  phenomenal,  and  is  a  cause,  I  believe, 
of  real  anxiety  to  the  Fishery  Board,  who  institute 
vigorous  campaigns  against  them.  The  objection  to 
grayling  is,  of  course,  relative  and  qualified.  But 
that  the  fish  food  of  bright  Border  rivers  should  be 
laid  under  heavy  tribute  by  roach  is  an  almost  un- 
thinkable outrage.  The  Till,  as  I  have  said,  makes 
a  great  effort  in  its  last  rush  through  Twizel  woods 
into  Tweed  to  redeem  its  character  for  sloth.  But 
322 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

Tweed  is  not  to  be  taken  in  by  this  death-bed  repent- 
ance, and  everybody  knows  the  little  passage-of-arms 
the  two  rivers  engage  in  at  their  confluence  : — 

Said  Tweed  to  Till, 

'  What  gars  ye  rin  sae  still  ? ' 

Said  Till  to  Tweed, 

'Though  ye  rin  wi'  speed 

And  I  rin  slaw, 

Whar  ye  droon  ae  man 

I  droon  twa.' 

The  world  hears  much  of  Tweed  salmon,  but  nothing 
of  Tweed  trout.  They  are  noble  but  capricious 
fellows,  not  scarce  monsters,  but  fairly  plentiful,  and 
strenuous  pounders  too,  fighting  as  becomes  the  fish  of 
such  a  river.  Between  Kelso  and  Berwick,  at  any  rate, 
this  usually  implies  a  boat,  and  when  Tweed  trout 
come  on  the  feed  it  means  an  hour  or  two  of  sport 
such  as  seems  to  live  in  the  memory.  Even  within 
four  miles  of  Berwick  such  hours  and  moments  are  not 
infrequent,  and  anglers  well  known  to  me  are  some- 
times thus  blest.  For  myself,  fairly  well  as  I  know 
the  river,  opportunities  for  this  further  intimacy 
have  been  withheld.  Life,  alas  !  unless  you  have 
nothing  else  to  do,  is  much  too  short  for  all  the  pleasant 
schemes  that  hope  lays  up  for  some  future  day.  The 
same,  so  far  as  I  am  concerned,  applies  to  the  Coquet, 
though  the  disrepute  as  regards  trout  into  which 
that  famous  river  has  of  late  years  fallen  may  alleviate 
one's  regrets.  No  river  in  the  past  has  been  so  clpsely 
identified  with  Northumbrian  angling  lore  as  the 
Coquet.  None  have  inspired  such  a  garland  of  praise 
in  prose  and  verse  from  Northumbrian  pens,  and  there 

323 


CLEAR  WATERS 

is  no  stream  in  the  county  more  calculated  to  do  so. 
Salmon  and  sea  trout  are,  I  believe,  more  plentiful 
than  of  old,  and  to  this  fact  some  attribute  the  noto- 
rious decline  over  much  of  it  of  a  once  great  trout 
river.  If  this  indeed  be  so,  it  is  a  pity.  The  few  days 
on  which  *  sea  fish,'  as  they  call  them  in  Northumber- 
land, afford  sport  are  a  poor  exchange  for  the  months 
in  which  trout  give  pleasure  to  a  greater  number, 
and,  on  the  whole,  demand  more  skill  in  the  catching. 
The  once  fine  water  from  Rothbury  down  is  now  full, 
I  am  told,  of  fingerlings  and  samlets,  and  respectable 
fish  are  hard  to  come  at.  The  Coquet  has  been  the 
treasured  haunt  of  many  famous  north  countrymen. 
Bewick,  the  great  wood  engraver,  for  one  was  a  keen 
fisherman,  and  its  constant  habitue;  so  were  Roxby, 
Joseph  Crawhall,  Henderson,  Doubleday,  and  others. 
Its  streams  and  pools  are  beautiful,  and  its  waters 
carry  to  the  sea  the  fine  colour  of  their  Cheviot 
source.  There  are  no  grayling,  nor,  I  think,  any  coarse 
fish  here,  nor  is  there  any  contamination,  nor  any 
serious  poaching.  And  it  is  as  melancholy,  as  well  as  a 
little  mysterious,  that  so  renowned  a  stream  should 
have  fallen  away  so  deplorably,  as  all  its  friends  report. 
Any  one  familiar  with  the  Great  Northern  route  to 
Edinburgh  will  recall  that  beautiful  glimpse  of  the 
Coquet  where  the  train  strides  it  a  few  miles  south 
of  Alnwick,  and  what  a  fine  view  seaward  you  get 
just  here  of  Warkworth  castle,  whose  noble  ruins  are 
reflected  in  the  lowest  reach  of  the  river. 

Coquet — for  Northumbrians,  like  the  Scots,  often 
drop  the  article  in  alluding  to  their  rivers,  conveying 
therein  a  pleasant  suggestion  of  intimacy  and  affection 

324 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

— Coquet,  then,  rises  also  in  the  Cheviots,  not  far  from 
Rede,  and  pursues  her  way  through  the  same  class  of 
scenery  and  boasts  the  same  stirring  story  as  the 
Tynes.  But  none,  as  before  stated,  have  by  anglers 
been  so  much  sung  of,  Robert  Roxby  in  the  first  half 
of  the  last  century  being  perhaps  the  laureate  of  the 
band,  and  certainly  the  editor  of  most  of  the  Coquet 
poets : — 

I  will  sing  of  the  Coquet,  the  dearest  of  themes, 
The  haunt  of  the  fisher,  the  first  of  a'  streams  j 
There 's  nane  like  the  Coquet  in  a'  the  king's  land 
From  the  white  cliffs  of  Dover  to  North  Britain's  strand. 

The  elder  Crawhall,  artist,  poet,  angler,  and  humorist, 
is  the  most  famous  of  the  Coquet  group,  and  inspirer 
of  Charles  Keene,  scores  of  whose  well-known  jokes 
in  Punch  came  from  his  Newcastle  friend.  With  the 
latter's  Completest  Angling  Booke  all  fishermen  of  a 
literary  turn  are  familiar,  at  least  by  name.  I  fear  if 
these  worthies  were  to  return  to  the  Coquet  to-day 
they  would  not  sound  the  eulogistic  note  with  any- 
thing like  such  fervour.  But  I  am  sure  till  quite 
recent  times  it  was  not  undeserved. 

A  fine,  lusty,  peat-tinged  stream,  after  a  long 
pilgrimage  through  fern  and  heath-clad  uplands, 
amid  which  Scott  laid  the  opening  chapters  of  Rob  Roy 
and  the  home  of  Diana  Vernon,  the  river  finally  leaves 
the  Cheviots  at  the  pleasant  town  of  Rothbury,  which 
nestles  beneath  their  outer  ramparts,  just  here  of 
considerable  height  and  more  than  considerable  shape- 
liness. Thence  for  fifteen  miles  the  river  urges  its 
streams    over   a    clean,    rocky   bottom,    through   the 

325 


CLEAR  WATERS 

undulating  lowlands  of  Northumberland  to  the  sea. 
Coquet,  it  may  be  said  again,  holds  the  affections  of 
Northumbrians,  I  think,  above  all  their  rivers.  There 
is  a  sort  of  feeling  that  it  is,  even  more  so  than  others, 
their  representative  stream,  partly  perhaps  because  it 
flows  through  the  heart  of  the  county,  and  is  more 
familiar  than  the  remoter  dales  of  Tyne.  Like  them, 
its  glens  are  rich  in  story,  and  thickly  strewn  with  the 
reHcs  of  a  fighting  age,  while  it  finds  its  fitting  end 
beneath  the  great  star-shaped  keep  with  eight  lofty- 
clustered  towers  that  was  built  by  Hotspur's  father 
in  the  third  Edward's  stirring  days.  Warkworth  was 
the  chief  seat  of  the  Percies  before  Alnwick  was  restored 
in  the  eighteenth  century.  It  is  a  deathless  reminder 
of  two  great  English  victories — Crecy  and  Neville's 
Cross ;  for  it  was  while  the  king  was  winning  the 
former  that  Henry  Percy,  Warden  of  the  March,  won 
the  latter  against  the  invading  Scots,  for  which  the 
money  to  build  Warkworth  was  the  royal  and  well- 
earned  reward.  Here,  too,  it  will  be  remembered, 
Shakespeare  lays  the  opening  scene  in  Henry  IF.j 
when  Hotspur's  wife  Kate  tries  to  worm  from  him  the 
secret  of  those  moody  humours  and  restless  nights 
which  ultimately  led  to  the  cataclysm  at  Shrewsbury, 
and  ended  there  for  good. 

The  observant  railway  traveller  before  invoked 
will  be  also  familiar  with  the  little  seaside  town  of 
Alnmouth,  clustering  picturesquely  above  the  Aln,  as 
well  as  with  the  winding  course  of  that  river  through 
its  green  meadows  from  high-perched  embattled 
Alnwick  to  the  sea.  There  is  a  fair  run  of  sea  trout 
and  salmon  up  here,  and  much  of  the  water  is  accessible 
326 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

through  an  association,  Hke  so  much  of  the  lower 
Coquet.  Below  Aliiwick  castle,  however,  in  that 
beautiful  demesne  of  Hulne  park,  the  Aln  has  become 
more  of  a  brawling,  rocky  trout  stream,  and  for  two 
or  three  miles  sings  through  as  charming  a  blend  of 
art  and  nature  as  one  might  wish  to  see.  Having  ex- 
hausted the  beauties  of  the  park,  which  contains  lofty 
hills,  gracefully  clad  with  fine  timber,  native  and 
exotic,  and  two  ruined  abbeys,  besides  herds  of  deer  and 
Highland  cattle,  I  returned  there  upon  another  day 
with  permission  to  fish  it,  in  which  matter  the  duke 
is  very  generous.  I  had  been  told  by  my  angling 
friends  and  acquaintances  in  the  country  that  a  good 
day  there  meant  forty  to  fifty  quarter-pounders. 
Mine  was  a  September  day  in  a  dry  spell.  I  did  not 
look  for  any  such  returns,  and  was  not  disappointed 
with  a  dozen  and  a  half,  for  the  compensations  of  fish- 
ing amid  that  beautiful  Arcady  were  considerable. 
It  struck  me  as  rather  odd  that  the  trout  were  nearly 
all  the  same  size,  but  it  suggested  the  possibility  that 
there  were  rather  too  many  of  them  in  the  stream. 

I  had  no  intention  of  writing  an  angling  guide  to 
the  rivers  of  Northumberland  in  the  space  of  a  chapter, 
but  I  find  that  the  Wansbeck  is  literally  the  only  one 
in  the  county  I  have  made  no  allusion  to,  and  it  has 
always  a  rather  tender  place  in  my  memory,  though 
I  have  only  fished  it  once  in  my  life.  It  is  not  for  the 
achievements  of  that  solitary  day  it  holds  this  cherished 
position,  though  those  being  satisfactory  no  doubt 
lent  flavour  to  the  occasion.  But  at  the  moment  I 
had  just  returned  from  a  residence  abroad  of  ten  years, 
which  in  early  life  is  a  long  time.     I  had  caught,  to  be 

327 


CLEAR  WATERS 

sure,  heaps  of  trout,  and  those,  moreover,  in  no 
unpleasant  exile.  I  had  caught  them,  too,  amid  sur- 
roundings that  for  beauty  as  such  could  not  be 
surpassed,  I  believe,  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  They 
had  come  out  of  peUucid  rocky  streams,  amid  mountain 
forests  of  rich  foHage  and  exquisite  splendour,  thickly 
carpeted  with  the  dazzling  bloom  of  rhododendrons  and 
kalmia.  I  had  almost  come  to  fancy  myself  cured  of  all 
regrets  for  the  streams  and  scenes  of  youth  ;  and  I  had 
not  thrown  a  fly  on  a  British  stream  since  I  had  reeled 
up  my  Hne  on  the  Whiteadder  for  the  last  time  one 
April  day  just  a  decade  ago.  On  the  occasion  in  ques- 
tion I  had  run  up  very  soon  after  my  return  home  to 
Newcastle  to  spend  a  couple  of  days  with  the  most 
intimate  friend  of  my  childhood  and  youth.  We  had, 
in  fact,  been  almost  reared  together,  and  then  after- 
wards as  school  friends  on  those  rare  occasions  when 
cricket  or  football  was  in  abeyance  and  a  whole  day 
was  available,  had  been  wont  to  make  adventurous 
pilgrimages  in  pursuit  of  trout  or  even  meaner  prey. 
So  it  seemed  only  fitting  and  natural  when  I  found 
that  one  of  my  two  days  in  the  north  was  set  aside  for 
a  fishing  excursion  and  that  old  days — for  they  seemed 
very  much  so  at  two-and-thirty — were  to  be  thus 
commemorated.  It  was  a  felicitous  coincidence, 
too,  that  that  very  last  day  with  the  trout  in  the 
old  country,  above  alluded  to,  had  been  enjoyed 
together. 

So  off  we  went  by  an  evening  train  from  Newcastle. 
For  myself  I  knew  nothing  whatever  of  Northumber- 
land at  that  period,  while  my  companion  from  the 
nature  of  his  duties  already  knew  every  inch  of  it. 
328 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

We  changed  at  Morpeth,  took  the  branch  line,  and  got 
out  at  what  I  have  since  identified  as  Scott's  Gap 
station.  We  spent  the  night  at  a  friend's  house  near 
by,  and  in  the  morning  sallied  forth  to  a  tributary  of 
the  Wansbeck,  which  I  remember  was  in  capital  order. 
What  I  most  recall,  however,  is  the  delight  of  the  old 
sensations  once  again,  and  how  it  all  came  upon 
me  in  a  moment  that,  without  admitting  it,  I  had 
been  in  a  trouting  sense  homesick  all  these  years.  It 
was  a  cool,  breezy  summer  day,  with  glints  of  sunshine, 
and  the  raindrops  still  sparkled  in  the  leaves  and  upon 
the  grass.  There  were  scents  you  never  get  a  whiff 
of  out  of  England,  and  a  chorus  of  sound  you  never 
hear  out  of  Britain.  There  were  the  grey  but  glorious 
moors  once  more,  the  wide  half-boggy  pasture  fields, 
the  soft,  fresh,  moist  air  that  is  nowhere  else  quite  the 
same.  A  fig  for  your  unbroken  sunshine  and  tangled 
forests,  with  or  without  the  snakes  and  mosquitoes 
and  all  the  rest  of  it,  I  shouted  in  my  thoughts  at  any 
rate,  and  meant  it  and  still  mean  it ;  for  I  was  a  true- 
born  Briton  after  all,  and  there  is  no  prejudice  in  these 
worthy  ingrained  preferences.  They  are  much  too 
deep  for  anything  so  common  as  that.  Give  to  me 
always  and  aU  the  time  the  atmosphere  that  so  vastly 
helps  to  impart  an  indescribable  scenic  charm  to 
Britain,  as  every  discerning  alien  admits ;  that  covers 
it  with  a  sward  which  is  to  them  beyond  anything  they 
have  ever  dreamed  of,  that  gives  a  mystery  to  the  moun- 
tain and  a  character  to  the  moor,  all  and  absolutely  their 
own.  Let  the  hot-house  folk  who  do  not  understand 
these  things,  degenerate  sons  of  a  northern  race,  hunt 
the  sun  around  the  world,  and  curse  if  they  choose  what 

329 


CLEAR  WATERS 

to  sound  country-loving  folk  at  any  rate,  and  for  anglers 
beyond  any  doubt,  is  the  finest  climate  in  the  world ! 

I  remember  with  what  dehght  I  heard  the  curlews 
call  once  more  and  the  plovers  cry  and  flushed  a  black- 
cock in  the  '  white  grass '  on  the  way  to  the  stream. 
And  what  joy  it  was  to  see  again  the  grey  wagtail 
preening  herself  on  the  shingle  of  the  brook  edge,  the 
sandpiper  scudding  along  its  surface,  the  white- 
breasted  dipper  nodding  at  one  as  of  old  from  a 
mossy  rock,  the  kindly  odours,  the  gracious  look  of 
the  brook-side  that  never  knew  the  meaning  of  those 
scorching  agencies,  fierce  heat  or  fierce  cold  as  most 
of  the  world  understands  them,  all  seemed  to  welcome 
one  home  again  as  to  a  place  where  one  really  belongs. 

Yes,  indeed,  this  was  the  true  country  for  the  angler 
or  the  sportsman  of  any  kind,  where  there  is  practically 
not  a  day  in  the  whole  year  when  active  out-door  life 
is  unavailable !  It  was  kind,  too,  of  the  fish  to  signaHse 
such  an  otherwise  auspicious  day,  since  it  was  a  July 
one,  by  rising  really  well.  At  any  rate  we  had  half  a 
basketful  apiece  of  sizeable  little  trout,  when  the 
exigencies  of  train-time  put  an  end  to  our  sport.  The 
only  cloud  over  this  to  me  rather  memorable  day  was 
the  feeling  that  it  was  but  an  interlude  not  to  be  re- 
peated perhaps  for  years.  Had  I  dreamed  it  was  but 
the  prelude  to  thirty  years,  at  any  rate,  of  reasonable 
enjoyment  of  such  delights,  what  a  day  it  would  have 
been !  On  the  other  hand,  what  a  day  had  I  known 
that,  when  we  parted  that  evening  on  the  Morpeth 
platform,  I  should  never  see  my  old  friend  and  play- 
mate again  in  this  world  !  Being  for  the  first  reason 
in  rather  sentimental  mood,  I  sat  down  when  I  got 
330 


NORTHUMBERLAND 

home  and  wrote  a  little  sketch  entitled  *  A  Northum- 
brian stream,  from  a  long-exiled  angler's  point  of  view,' 
and  sent  it  to  Mr.  John  Morley,  as  he  then  was,  who 
as  editor  of  the  Pall  Mall  and  MacmillarCs  Magazine 
was  always  most  kindly  hospitable  to  my  intermittent 
contributions  on  out-door  matters,  and  it  was  printed 
next  day. 


331 


CLEAR  WATERS 


X 

THE  WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

NOBODY  in  the  south  has  ever  heard  of  the 
Whiteadder,  and  that  very  fact  to  my  think- 
ing is  one  of  its  many  charms.  There  would 
be  nothing  whatever  in  such  obscurity  if  this  were  a 
river  in  Sutherlandshire  or  the  Hebrides.  But  it  is 
remarkable  that  a  trouting  stream  which  runs  a  broad, 
brawhng  course  for  forty  miles,  and  at  its  best  points 
is  virtually  within  sound  of  the  London  and  Edinburgh 
mail  trains,  should  thus  have  kept  itself  to  itself,  and 
its  very  name  unknown  to  the  public  ear.  For  that 
a  hungry  angUng  public,  outside  that  which  dwells 
between,  let  us  say,  Edinburgh  and  Newcastle  in- 
clusive, has  never  heard  of  it  is  a  fact  that  a  sufficiently 
wide  acquaintance  among  the  fraternity  enables  me 
to  set  down  with  tolerable  confidence.  The  humour 
of  the  situation — and  I  think  there  is  some  humour 
in  it — is  in  no  way  lessened  by  the  further  fact  that 
this  really  noble  river  has  been  for  all  time  free  to 
any  one  who  likes  to  fish  it,  the  whole  way  from  its 
wild  infancy  in  the  high  moors  to  its  junction  with 
the  Tweed  in  sight  of  Berwick.  To  clinch  the  matter, 
lest  such  an  incredible  state  of  affairs  should  breed  a 
suspicion  in  the  reader's  mind  that  the  river  is  un- 
332 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

worthy  of  attention,  I  may  say  at  once  that  in  almost 
any  part  of  it  baskets  of  from  twelve  to  fifteen  pounds 
of  trout  are  killed  tolerably  often  in  every  season. 
I  fancy  most  of  us  are  just  a  little  more  than  content 
if  we  are  fortunate  enough  to  stagger  home  under 
so  respectable  a  burden  from  any  club,  association, 
or  preserved  water  in  the  hill  countries  of  England  or 
Wales  !  I  must  hasten,  however,  to  take  the  edge  ofE 
any  justifiable  scepticism  of  the  southern  reader  by 
affirming  that  the  Whiteadder  is  the  finest  natural  trout 
stream  of  its  class  known  to  me  in  this  island,  though 
the  Cardiganshire  Teifi  may  tug  perhaps  a  little  at 
my  conscience  in  giving  utterance  to  this  pious  opinion. 
But  then  the  latter  is  mainly  preserved,  though  against 
this  must  be  set  the  lamentable  fact  that  nefarious 
poachers  abound  in  Wales. 

In  south-eastern  Scotland,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
rod  fishermen  are  as  legion,  trout  poaching,  for  that 
very  reason  an  anti-popular  pursuit,  is  tolerably  well 
kept  under.  If  I  had  to  fish  for  a  wager — ^which 
Heaven  forbid  ! — and  had  the  choice  of  the  Teifi  or 
the  Whiteadder,  I  should  certainly  choose  the  former, 
merely  as  a  preserved  river,  while  the  latter,  judged  by 
a  south  country  standard,  is  flogged  to  death.  But  this 
estimate  of  the  Whiteadder  as  the  finest  trout  stream 
known  to  me  is  formed  on  two  accounts : — firstly, 
as  presenting  a  surface  continuously  and  uninterrupt- 
edly alluring  to  cast  one's  flies  upon,  and  secondly, 
for  the  astounding  fertility  which  has  resisted  the 
unchecked  onslaught  of  generations  of  skilled  anglers. 
I  should  be  inclined  to  think  it  possessed  some  magic 
qualities,  some  supernatural  fecundity,  if  it  were  not 

333 


CLEAR  WATERS 

for  some  other  streams  of  the  Eastern  March,  en- 
dowed with  the  same  amazingly  recuperative  powers, 
such,  for  example,  as  the  Blackadder  and  the  Leader. 
Whether  we  have  any  rivers  in  Yorkshire,  Wales,  or 
Devonshire  that  would  stand  this  treatment  it  would 
be  extremely  interesting  to  know,  though  futile  to 
inquire.  For  neither  is  any  opportunity  for  comparison 
afforded,  nor  is  anywhere  to  be  found  such  a  fishing 
population  among  the  humbler  classes.  But  if  these 
Border  rivers  have  in  truth  any  such  exceptionally 
productive  qualities,  there  is  absolutely  nothing  in 
their  appearance  to  distinguish  them  from  scores  of 
similar  ones  south  of  the  Tweed.  They  have  their 
duplicates  by  the  dozen  in  other  hill  and  mountain 
regions.  There  is  nothing  in  either  the  wild  moor- 
lands of  Berwickshire  or  in  its  cultivated  lowlands  to 
suggest  greater  fecundity  in  its  trout  streams  than  in 
the  moors  and  lowlands  of  Yorkshire,  Montgomery, 
or  Cardigan.  What,  then,  can  it  be,  and  is  all  our 
rather  strict  and  almost  timid  preservation  of  rapid 
waters  against  fair  fishing  just  so  much  moonshine  ? 
I  have  maintained  in  a  former  chapter  that  a  good  deal 
of  it  is.  But  the  Whiteadder,  the  Blackadder,  and 
the  Leader  confound  me  utterly,  knowing  intimately, 
as  I  do,  the  tremendous  toll  that  is  annually  levied  on 
them,  not  merely  with  fly,  but  with  bait  of  every 
description. 

My  first  acquaintance  with  the  Whiteadder  was 
made  on  leaving  college,  now,  alas !  over  forty  years 
ago,  and  the  study  of  agriculture  from  the  vantage- 
point  of  a  famous  East  Lothian  farm  was  the  indirect 
cause  of  introduction.'    I  had  never  before  been  north 

334 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

of  the  Tweed,  and  an  otherwise  pleasant  prospect 
was  not  a  little  clouded  by  the  report  of  an  old  comrade 
and  most  skilful  angler,  with  two  years'  experience  of 
my  future  quarters,  that  there  was  no  fishing  within 
reach.  Now  to  go  to  Scotland  and  leave  all  trouting 
behind  seemed  an  absurd  anachronism,  keen  fisherman 
and  hardy  soul  as  I  knew  my  friend  to  be,  and  not  few 
the  miles  that  we  had  tramped  together  after  trout. 
But  I  took  some  comfort  in  the  recollection  that  he 
was  not  of  an  inquiring  mind,  nor  alert  for  things 
outside  the  range  of  a  day's  compass,  though  he  could 
make  this  a  pretty  wide  one.  So  I  reached  out  for 
the  map,  and  was  at  once  relieved  to  find  that  I  had 
measured  him  correctly ;  for  within  a  dozen  miles 
by  surface  scale  of  my  future  domicile  there  showed 
dark  upon  the  map  the  expansive  uplands  of  the 
Lammermuirs,  honeycombed  with  the  thin  trail  of 
streams.  Even  at  one-and-twenty  I  was  at  once 
topographer  and  angler  enough  to  know  that  on  the 
Scottish  border  those  streams  spelled  trout,  and  that, 
humanly  speaking,  nothing  not  easily  surmountable 
would  prevent  my  some  day  or  other  getting  at  them. 
And  thus  of  course  it  proved.  When  after  a  long 
winter  day's  journey  and  a  late  arrival  I  looked  out 
in  the  morning  from  my  bedroom  window  over  the 
flat  East  Lothian  land,  there  they  were  sure  enough, 
the  hills  of  the  map  sweeping  the  whole  horizon — 
dark  rolling  masses,  obviously  grouse  moors,  riven  at 
intervals  with  deep  ravines,  and,  distant  though  they 
were,  eloquent  to  any  fisherman's  eye  of  potential 
trout  streams.  That  was  January,  and  such  a  cold 
one.     I  well  remember  that  the  roar  of  the  curling- 

335 


CLEAR  WATERS 

stones  with  its  accompanying  babel  of  hearty  Doric 
echoed  all  through  the  month  and  far  into  February. 
Nobody  down  on  the  coast  knew  anything  to  speak  of 
about  the  interior  of  these  hills,  or  indeed  anything 
about  trout,  as  is  the  way  of  local  people.  But  before 
the  end  of  March,  so  eager  was  I,  in  that  glorious  hey- 
day of  youth,  when  all  the  world  was  fresh  and  new, 
an  oyster  to  be  opened,  I  had  already  discovered  a 
snug  inn  in  the  heart  of  the  moors,  and  was  actually 
hauling  out,  to  my  amazement,  big  bull-trout  kelts 
in  the  finest-looking  river  I  had  as  yet  ever  fished. 
As  Devonshire  trout  rose  well  in  March,  and  as  this 
to  my  eyes  seemed  a  replica  of  Exmoor,  I  had  assumed 
they  would  be  equally  accommodating  here.  But  to 
shorten  the  story,  I  was  in  due  course  on  terms  of 
more  or  less  intimacy  with  most  of  the  streams  and 
burns  in  these  glorious  hills,  finding  means  of  getting 
to  them  for  two  or  three  days  at  a  time,  on  and  off, 
throughout  two  whole  fishing  seasons.  They  were  all 
free  water  then,  as  they  mainly  are  now,  and  despite 
their  soHtude  and  the  roughness  of  the  few  roads 
that  led  to  them  were,  by  comparison  with  our  closely 
preserved  streams  of  the  south-west,  heavily  fished. 
Edinburgh,  Berwick,  and  Newcastle  contained  anglers 
galore  as  they  do  to-day,  though  no  doubt  the  great 
increase  in  population  of  the  first  and  last-named  has 
extended  automatically  to  the  fraternity,  while  the 
motor  and  the  cycle,  even  with  steep  and  awkward 
roads,  must  have  made  their  mark. 

But  even  forty  odd  years  ago  those  truly  Scottish 
institutions,  the  *  Fushin  Clubs '  of  Edinburgh  and 
elsewhere,  often  held  their  competitions  on  the  best 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

and  least  accessible  portions  of  the  Whiteadder  and 
its  tributaries.  A  good  deal  of  exaggeration,  however, 
is  indulged  in  regarding  this  increase  of  fishermen. 
Ten  years  before  those  here  told  of,  that  celebrated 
Scottish  angler  Stewart,  whose  range  included  the 
Whiteadder,  wrote  in  his  little  classic  that  fishermen 
had  so  multiplied,  the  future  of  sport  on  the  Border 
was  most  problematical.  I  think  the  fifties  and  sixties 
did  witness  a  very  great  impetus  to  fishing,  helped 
partly  no  doubt  by  railroad  facilities.  But  at  any  rate 
in  the  seventies  all  these  open  waters  were  full  of  fish. 
As  indicating  the  attitude  then,  and  even  still,  of  the 
lowland  angler,  Stewart  regarded  open  rivers  as  a 
matter  of  course.  I  don't  think  he  even  discusses  the 
closing  of  waters  in  his  remarks  on  the  future  of  fishing. 
That  rivers  could  be  depleted  by  fair  fishing,  which 
here  includes  the  worm,  never,  I  think,  entered  his 
head.  Such  a  point  of  view  rarely  occurs  to  the 
typical  lowland  angler  even  to-day,  and  I  believe  in 
the  main  he  is  right.  What  change,  if  any,  has  taken 
place  in  these  streams  since  the  *  good  old  days '  when 
I  fished  them  as  a  youth,  I  don't  feel  qualified  to 
say,  interesting  as  such  a  comparison  would  and  must 
be  to  any  one  concerned  with  the  welfare  of  trout. 
But  here  is  the  local  point  of  view,  and  apparently  its 
results  illustrated. 

A  few  years  ago,  after  some  thirty-five  of  complete 
absence  from  this  Border  country,  I  found  myself 
standing  on  a  bridge  over  the  Whiteadder  in  the 
Berwickshire  low  country.  It  was,  in  fact,  my  first  day 
on  Scottish  soil  and  first  sight  of  the  Whiteadder  since 
youth.  My  host  and  companion  was  a  local  land- 
Y  337 


CLEAR  WATERS 

owner  who  had  been  one  of  our  little  fishing  company 
in  the  old  days.  He  had  long  ceased  to  be  a  fisher- 
man, though  the  father  of  several.  Nor  were  we  at 
the  moment  concerned  at  all  with  such  things,  but 
were  merely  talking  over  old  times  and  watching  some 
trout  rising  under  an  over-arching  willow,  and  some- 
thing like  this  passed  between  us. 

*  All  is  of  course  changed  now,'  said  I ;  '  and  the 
river,  no  doubt,  preserved  up  to  its  source  ? ' 

*  Preserved  ?  no ;  why  should  it  be  ? '  replied  my 
friend  in  a  tone  of  surprise. 

'  Do  you  mean  to  tell  me,  then,  that  with  all  the 
modern  development  and  demand  for  trout  fishing, 
things  here  are  still  as  they  were  when  we  were  young  ? ' 
[I  might  add  that  a  big  village  of  a  thousand  souls  lay 
in  sight  upon  the  ridge  above,  to  say  nothing  of  a 
paper-mill  on  the  river  employing  about  a  hundred 
hands,] 

*  Yes,  of  course  they  are ;  what  else  do  you  ex- 
pect ?  So  far  as  I  know,  the  river  is  practically  free 
up  to  its  source.     Why  not  ? ' 

Well,  like  any  one  else  from  south  of  the  Tweed,  at 
the  beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  I  very  natur- 
ally never  expected  anything  of  the  kind.  This  was 
during  a  brief  run  of  a  couple  of  days  across  the  Border. 
The  following  summer  I  revisited  south-eastern 
Scotland  seriously,  and  took  the  further  opportunity 
of  paying  a  longish  visit  to  the  upper  Whiteadder, 
not  wholly,  since  the  month  was  August,  on  fishing 
bent,  but  with  the  prospect  of  at  least  throwing  an 
occasional  Hne  on  its  once  familiar  streams. 

I  had  not  assuredly  forgotten  my  old  friend's  utter- 

338 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

ances.  But  twelve  months  perhaps  had  weakened 
their  effect,  and,  moreover,  he  had  himself  long  lost 
interest  in  fishing.  So  when  in  Edinburgh  I  turned 
into  Hardy's  (Mrs.  Hogg,  I  found,  had  passed  into 
oblivion)  to  get  some  flies,  and  still  somewhat  sceptical 
asked  the  manager  if  the  waters  of  Whiteadder  were 
still  free,  and  if  so,  whether  there  were  any  trout  left. 

*  Free  ? '  said  the  blunt  Scot,  '  what  else  would  they 
be,  but  for  a  trifle  of  water  here  and  there  in  the 
policies  ?  Any  trout  left  !  I  killed  sixteen  pounds 
to  my  ain  rod  on  the  21st  of  May  last  between  Abbey 
and  EUemford.     Aye,  yon 's  a  gran'  wee  river  yet !  ' 

If  I  suspected  some  licence  of  speech  at  the  time, 
I  soon  came  to  understand  that  there  was  no  ground 
whatever  for  such  doubts.  It  was  then,  as  I  have  said, 
August,  and  I  did  not  expect  to  kill  sixteen  pounds 
or  anything  approaching  it.  But  while  up  there  we 
had  one  great  rain.  And  when  the  flood  had  run  off 
I  took  a  day  on  the  stretch  above  Abbey  St.  Bathans, 
so  familiar  to  me  in  youth.  A  companion  was  with 
me,  and  together  we  nearly  filled  my  basket,  which 
held  about  fourteen  pounds  of  this  class  of  trout  or 
grayling.  We  had  nothing  up  to  a  pound,  though 
there  are  plenty  very  much  heavier  than  that  in  the 
river,  but  a  goodly  number  of  sizeable  third-  and 
half-pounders  were  among  the  lot,  and  as  the  interest 
of  the  matter  lies  in  its  being  a  heavily  fished  open 
river,  not  in  our  particular  doings,  it  may  be  worth 
stating  that  we  returned  probably  a  hundred  small 
fish  to  the  water.  I  have  fished  the  Whiteadder  many 
times  since  then,  but  my  own  doings  are  of  no  im- 
mediate purport.     It  is  more  to  the  point  here  that 

339 


CLEAR  WATERS 

I  have  seen  and  heard  at  close  quarters  in  the  past  few 
years  a  great  deal  of  this  Border  fishing  and  realise 
what  a  world  unto  itself  it  is,  how  large  the  craft  looms 
in  the  life  of  the  country,  and  how  different  its  con- 
ditions are  to  the  comparatively  exclusive  atmosphere 
that  pervades  the  trout  streams  even  of  Yorkshire, 
Wales,  and  the  south-west. 

Now,  a  trout-fishing  club  in  the  south  means  per- 
haps a  dozen  or  so  well-to-do  gentlemen  who  rent  a 
stretch  of  river  and  carefully  preserve  it,  and  probably 
nourish  it  periodically  with  fresh  stock.  A  fishing 
club  in  Scotland  represents  a  society  of  anglers,  gentle 
or  simple,  citizens  let  us  say  of  Edinburgh,  which 
exists  mainly  for  competitions,  terminated  not  seldom 
by  banquets  of,  in  the  old  days  at  any  rate,  a  most  con- 
vivial character ;  for  no  men  can  dine  together  more 
joyously  and  altogether  felicitously  than  Scotsmen. 
But  as  regards  the  Scottish  fishing  club,  its  main  raison 
d^Hre,  as  I  have  before  remarked,  is  competition  and 
the  winning  of  medals  and  other  trophies,  a  custom 
not  only  alien  but  positively  hateful  in  principle  to 
the  southern  trout-fisher.  But  there  it  is  *  whatever,' 
and  the  Scotsman  likes  it.  There  are  scores  of  such 
clubs  in  the  north,  and  on  the  day  appointed  for  a 
competition  by  any  one  of  them  its  members  take  the 
train,  not  generally,  unless  specified,  for  the  same 
river  for  perhaps  obvious  reasons,  but  a  choice  is  given 
of  any  open  water.  Away  they  then  flit  in  singles, 
braces,  or  trios  to  various  portions  of  a  score  of  streams 
which  custom  has  kept  free,  and  that  owners,  even  if 
they  so  desired,  would  probably  find  difficult  to  close. 
There  is  an  old  and  strong  popular  tradition  in  southern 
340 


Photo,  A.  P.  Hope 


THE    WHITEADDER    AT    HUTTON    CASTLE 


Photo,  A.  P.  Hope 
THE    WHITEADDER    NEAR    ITS    JUNCTION    WITH    TWEED 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

Scotland  of  a  right  of  access  to  trouting  waters.  It 
may  or  may  not  be  justifiable.  It  is,  of  course,  not 
always  recognised,  but  there  it  is  anyway,  and  many 
rivers  testify  to  the  fact  that  they  can  stand  usage 
without  damage  to  the  owners,  and  at  the  same  time 
provide  immense  pleasure  to  a  great  number  of  worthy 
sportsmen.  Some  free  waters,  to  be  sure,  are  under 
*  associations,'  but  the  term  has  not  the  usual  southern 
significance  of  say  half-a-crown  or  five  shillings  a  day, 
but  merely  the  payment  of  some  such  nominal  amount 
per  annum,  the  large  number  of  subscribers  thereby 
providing  for  the  maintenance  of  a  watcher.  Almost 
the  only  potential  enemies  of  trout  are  the  miners, 
who  repair  in  groups  to  these  waters  for  two  or  three 
days  at  a  time,  sleeping  in  the  open,  and  though  keen 
enough  rod  fishermen  they  are  not  above  making  up 
for  poor  sport  by  nefarious  practices.  The  local  angler 
bears  no  jealousy  whatever  towards  his  fellow-sports- 
man, wherever  he  may  hail  from,  but  he  loathes  and 
suspects  the  miner,  whether  from  Midlothian  or  from 
Lanarkshire,  and  probably  with  good  cause. 

When  the  competitors  return  at  evening  from 
Berwickshire,  the  Lothians,  Selkirk,  Roxburgh,  or 
Peebles  to  the  headquarters  of  their  club,  the  baskets 
are  weighed  in,  the  victors  are  proclaimed,  and  the 
day  sometimes,  as  related,  wound  up  with  a  banquet. 
The  results  (not  of  the  banquet)  are  published  next 
morning  in  the  Scotsman,  along  with  the  golfing, 
bowling,  and  cricket  matches.  Almost  every  day 
throughout  the  season  their  figures  may  be  read ; 
and  any  southerner,  sceptical  as  to  the  capacity  of 
the  trout  to  hold  his  own  and  make  good  his  losses, 


CLEAR  WATERS 

can  there  find  weekly,  if  not  daily,  proof  of  it,  and 
account  for  what  to  him  no  doubt  would  appear  an 
insoluble  problem,  as  best  he  may. 

Now,  there  is  a  delightful  little  stream,  to  wit,  the 
Eye,  that  I  used  frequently  to  fish  in  youth.  It 
twists  in  and  out  of  the  Great  Northern  main  line  for 
many  miles,  where  the  latter  leaves  the  sea-coast  of 
Berwickshire  and  dives  through  the  skirts  of  Lammer- 
muir  on  its  way  to  the  flat  plain  of  Lothian  and  the 
Scottish  capital.  Every  third  person  who  goes  to 
Scotland,  otherwise  almost  every  third  person  one 
knows,  keeps  close  company  with  the  little  river  for 
about  a  quarter  of  an  hour.  But  I  have  never  in  my 
life  met  a  southerner  who  ever  took  note  of  it,  and 
mighty  few  who  have  ever  so  much  as  heard  of  the 
Lammermuirs,  unless  vaguely  as  the  scene  of  a  famous 
opera  and  a  great  novel.  This,  however,  is  purely  by 
the  way,  and  not  concerned  with  the  modest  but 
beautiful  little  stream  here  alluded  to.  I  was  talking 
to  a  local  sportsman  on  its  banks  only  the  other  day 
as  a  fast  train,  loaded  with  Highland-bound  tourists 
and  sportsmen,  roared  by  us  towards  Dunbar  and 
Edinburgh,  and  expressing  a  hope  that  it  was  as  good 
as  it  was  in  the  days  of  yore. 

*  Oh,  aye,  it 's  a  gran'  wee  river  yet ;  but  maybe  ye 
havena  heerd  we  've  formed  an  association  ? ' 

*  It 's  no  longer  free  water  then,'  said  I. 

*  Well,  it 's  nae  exactly  free  ;  we  've  got  the  associa- 
tion, ye  ken.' 

*  What  is  the  subscription  ? ' 

*  A  shuUin'  a  year,  jest.' 

*  Is  that  enough  to  keep  a  watcher  ? ' 

342 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

'  Na,  we  Ve  nae  watcher  ;  there  's  nae  need.' 
'*  How  do  you  spend  the  money,  then  ? ' 
*  Weel,  in  competeetions ;    first  and  second  prizes, 
an'  the  like  o'  that :  an'  then  we  hae  a  dinner.' 

This  was  at  Grant's  House  station  on  the  main  line, 
where  the  little  Eye  comes  singing  out  of  the  Lammer- 
muirs  to  foUow  the  railway  southward,  as  related,  for 
many  miles.  The  village,  including  an  inn  vastly 
improved  since  I  used  to  frequent  it  in  times  remote, 
is  the  nearest  railroad  point  to  the  more  beautiful  and 
less  fished  upper  waters  of  the  Whiteadder.  These 
can  be  reached  in  four  miles  by  a  hilly  road,  and  in 
charge  of  the  railroad  crossing  where  it  leaves  the 
village  there  was  recently,  and  may  be  still,  for  aught 
I  know,  a  superannuated  porter  with  a  prodigious 
turn  for  eloquence  and  anecdote — a  burly,  round- 
faced  hirsute  being,  with  a  tremendous  far-carrying 
voice,  a  passion  for  fishing,  and  a  deathless  grievance 
against  the  company  for  putting  him  where  he  is,  or 
was. 

He  wasn't  everybody's  friend.  If  you  had  shouted 
at  him  to  hurry  up  with  the  gates,  I  doubt  if  he  would 
ever  have  spoken  to  you  again.  Indeed,  I  don't  think 
he  was  popular  with  the  hill  farmers,  the  dog-cart 
men — not  for  any  official  shortcomings,  but  for  his 
passion  for  conversation.  It  so  fell  out  that  during 
a  quite  recent  summer  I  was  constantly  going  back 
and  forth  through  his  barrier,  and  being  then  mainly 
concerned  with  fishing,  and  furthermore  possessed  of 
a  fatal  weakness  for  roadside  *  cracks  '  with  originals 
of  all  sorts,  I  was  practically  annexed  by  this  one, 
and  seldom  got  away  under  ten  minutes.     He  had 

343 


CLEAR  WATERS 

apparently  fished  every  stream  and  burn  within  reach 
of  the  various  ramifications  of  the  North  British  rail- 
road system  on  which  he  had  spent  his  life.  On  each 
and  all  of  them  he  had  performed  deeds  of  derring-do 
with  fly  and  worm,  to  say  nothing  of  the  various 
grubs  and  beetles  dear  to  the  heart  of  the  Border 
angler.  The  precise  shade  of  a  hackle  for  this  river, 
the  touch  of  gold  tinsel  beloved  by  the  trout  of  that 
one — all  such  things  as  these,  the  garnered  store  of 
the  hard-won  leisure  hours  of  an  enthusiast,  were  the 
burden  of  his  talk  to  willing,  and  I  dare  say  to  many 
unwilling,  listeners.  He  had  known  many  famous 
Border  anglers,  and  was  fond  of  recalling  everything 
he  had  said  to  them  and  all  that  they  had  said  to  him 
on  the  unfailing  topic.  There  was  plenty  of  time, 
too,  for  such  indulgence,  as  mighty  few  wheeled  traps 
went  through  the  gates  to  face  the  narrow,  toilsome 
road  across  the  hills  beyond  them.  For  myself  I 
was  generally  cycling  on  these  occasions,  and  as  the 
ascent  rose  steeply  from  the  crossing,  one  couldn't 
finish  the  business  by  mounting  and  riding  away,  but 
had  to  push  for  half  a  mile,  which  gave  our  eloquent 
friend  a  chance  to  keep  abreast,  and  continue  the  record 
of  his  past  triumphs  and  his  present  grievances  for 
just  so  far  as  he  dare  wander  from  his  post.  He  was 
always  deeply  interested,  too,  in  the  news  from  the 
Whiteadder,  which  river,  poor  soul,  he  never  any 
longer  got  even  a  sight  of.  If  the  sport  had  been 
indifferent  he  would  tell  you  the  precise  reason  for 
it,  and  that  he  had  never  expected  anything  else. 
If,  on  the  other  hand,  you  had  done  well,  he  had  all 
along  been  confident  that  such  would  be  the  case,  and 

344 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

had  remarked  to  himself  frequently  throughout  his 
passing  hours  and  between  the  thunder  of  the  lightning 
trains,  *  It 's  a'  richt  wi'  the  fushin' ;  the  trouts  'ull  be 
jes'  takin'  fine  up  yonder  the  day.'  There  was  some- 
thing pathetic  about  this  stranded  old  angler  and  his 
crowded  memories.  The  relation  of  them,  however, 
together  with  his  ever-abiding  professional  grievance, 
the  nature  of  which  I  never  could  rightly  grasp,  must 
have  helped  to  keep  him  from  wearying  in  the  passive 
sense,  if  not  in  the  active  one,  as  he  proved  something 
of  a  terror  to  the  softer-hearted  wayfarer. 

Now,  the  Whiteadder  rises  high  up  on  the  northern 
brink  of  the  Lammermuirs.  From  the  top  of  the  high 
heath-clad  ridge,  whence  spout  its  infant  springs,  you 
look  out  over  the  noblest  prospect  in  Scotland.  Not 
the  widest  perhaps,  nor  assuredly  from  a  superficial 
point  of  view  the  grandest,  though  in  truth  it  is  both 
wide  and  grand  enough.  But  for  its  significance  in 
things  that  matter,  that  stir  the  heart  and  quicken  the 
pulse,  there  is  nothing  in  the  Highlands,  the  Scotland 
of  the  tourist  and  the  hotel-keeper,  the  ghillie,  and  the 
sporting  lessee  that  can  approach  it,  for  it  covers 
the  very  heart  of  the  northern  kingdom  which  in  the 
days  of  old  so  infinitely  outweighed  in  all  that  signified 
its  great  half-civilised  *  back  country,'  if  the  term  is 
permissible.  Below  lie  spread  the  rolling  plains  of 
Lothian,  the  finest  farmed  country  in  the  world, 
melting  away  into  the  massed  upstanding  heights  that 
mark  the  site  of  Edinburgh.  And  shimmering  beyond 
is  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the  Firth  of  Forth, 
washing  on  its  further  shore  from  end  to  end  the  entire 
southern   bounds   of   the   ancient  kingdom   of   Fife. 

345 


CLEAR  WATERS 

And  far  away  behind  Edinburgh  and  the  Pentlands 
rise  the  dimmer  outlines  of  the  Ochils  above  StirHng, 
and  fainter  still,  upon  a  clear  day  up  on  the  northern 
horizon,  the  blue  outlines  of  the  Grampians  may  be 
plainly  seen. 

But  the  infant  Whiteadder,  gathering  in  the  peat 
mosses  at  one's  feet,  turns  its  back  upon  all  this  storied 
country  and  heads  away  through  the  wild  heart  of 
these  heath-clad  hills  for  the  Merse  of  Berwickshire, 
to  fall  eventually  into  the  Tweed  three  miles  above 
Berwick.  It  is  the  last  of  its  tributaries,  and  the  only 
purely  Scottish  river  to  end  its  course  among  English 
meadows.  And  if  this  appears  for  the  moment  an 
anachronism,  it  will  be  helpful  and  not  amiss  to  remind 
the  reader  that  Berwick  town  and  some  four  miles  of 
adjacent  territory  is  English  ground.  Running  down 
through  mossy  valleys,  winding  deep  among  rolling 
grouse  moors,  its  solitude  broken  here  and  there  by 
the  homesteads  of  some  vast  sheep  farms,  and  swollen 
by  many  tributaries,  the  Whiteadder  quickly  expands 
into  a  good-sized  river.  A  dozen  miles  from  its  source, 
and  while  still  far  from  the  southern  brink  of  the  moors, 
you  have  to  get  into  the  water  to  compass  it  con- 
veniently. So  far  there  is  practically  not  a  bush  upon 
the  bank,  and  then  comes  rushing  in  the  Monynut,  a 
beautiful,  semi-wooded  burn  amazingly  full  of  small 
fish.  Below  the  confluence  the  policies  and  hamlet 
of  Abbey  St.  Bathans  entwine  themselves  on  either 
bank,  a  delightful  oasis  of  foHage  and  sequestered 
habitations  amid  the  great  wild  sweep  of  moor  and 
sheep  pasture.  Here,  chastened  in  spirit  by  a  low 
weir,  the  clear  amber-tinged  waters  in  broad,  quiet 

34<^ 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

current  run  down  between  the  laird's  lawns  and  woods 
on  the  one  side  and  the  mossy  knowes  clad  with  ferns 
and  indigenous  oaks  upon  the  other.  An  ancient  little 
kirk,  a  manse,  and  a  few  scattered  cottages  make  up 
one  of  the  most  idyllic  spots  in  the  south  of  Scotland, 
in  ancient  days,  as  its  name  implies,  a  religious  settle- 
ment of  which  scarce  any  trace  is  now  left. 

Though  but  four  miles  from  Grant's  House  on  the 
main  line,  it  is  virtually  a  cul-de-sac  as  regards  roads,  and 
is  entirely  shut  off  from  the  outer  world — all,  that  is  to 
say,  but  the  world  of  wandering  fishermen  from  both 
sides  of  the  Border.  And  as  there  is  almost  nowhere 
nowadays  for  such  wanderers  to  lay  their  heads  on  the 
upper  Whiteadder,  very  few  come  up  at  the  back-end 
of  the  season,  and  you  may  usually  have  as  much  water 
as  you  could  wish  for  to  yourself.  From  Abbey  St. 
Bathans  down  to  the  flat,  low  country  of  Berwickshire, 
the  river  pursues  a  romantic  and  tempestuous  course ; 
chafing  in  deep-channelled  rocky  flumes  between  fern- 
draped  walls  and  crags  all  beplumed  with  waving 
tufts  of  birch  and  rowan,  or  spreading  out  in  wider 
streams  and  pools  between  the  over-arching  foliage  of 
great  forest  trees.  Above  all  these  miles  of  stirring 
waters  with  their  delightful  blend  of  crag,  heather, 
bracken,  and  woodland,  Cockburn  Law  lifts  its  purple 
crown  a  thousand  feet  into  the  sky.  Bird-Hfe  is  every- 
where astir.  The  grouse,  the  partridge,  the  pheasant 
are  at  close  quarters  here  and  in  goodly  numbers  in 
brake  and  brae ;  cushats,  sandpipers,  water-ousels, 
moorhens,  wagtails,  pied  and  grey,  revel  in  the  lush 
abundance  of  everything  their  hearts  most  desire  by 
land  and  water.     Broad  and  deep,  too,  are  some  of 

347 


CLEAR  WATERS 

these  swirling  pools.  Great  trout  of  two,  three,  and 
four  pounds,  grown  too  wary  for  capture  by  any  normal 
lure,  swim  in  their  depths  and  take  heavy  toll  no  doubt 
of  the  small  trout  and  salmon  fry.  Some  of  us  tried 
the  sink-and-draw  minnow  on  these  presumed  canni- 
bals one  afternoon,  if  only  for  the  good  of  the  river, 
dropping  it  through  the  foliage  into  deep  water. 
Several  times  it  was  seized  by  one  or  other  of  them, 
but  somehow  or  other,  they  always  contrived  when 
all  seemed  safe  to  avoid  the  final  appeal  and  get  rid 
of  the  bait  without  a  serious  scratch.  Great  numbers 
of  bull-trout,  too,  rest  here  in  autumn,  though  rarely 
taken  on  a  rod  at  that  season.  It  is  in  the  spring, 
when  you  don't  want  them,  that  they  take  such  a 
violent  fancy  to  your  fly. 

My  first  experience  of  the  Whiteadder  in  the  dim 
days  referred  to  earlier  in  this  chapter,  was  almost 
wholly  concerned  with  these  lanky  bull-trout  kelts, 
strange  beasts  as  they  seemed  to  us  at  that  callow 
period.  And  as  to  that  cold  winter  in  the  early 
seventies,  the  frost  had  not  long  broken  and  the  dust 
of  March  had  only  just  begun  to  fly  behind  the  harrows 
on  the  flat  Lothian  sea-coast,  when  the  fishing  fever 
following  Devonian  precedents  developed  its  early 
spring  symptoms.  The  climatic  contrast  between 
eastern  Scotland  and  south-western  England  as 
regards  the  dawn  of  spring  was  a  fact  I  had  not  yet 
grasped.  The  Lammermuirs,  which  to  me  looked 
exactly  like  Exmoor  from  a  distance,  and  incidentally 
still  more  so  when  you  got  into  them,  seemed  fairly 
to  shout  across  the  Lothian  plain  that  the  time  had 
come  to  be  up  and  doing.  My  youthful  ardour,  too, 
348 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

had  been  whetted  by  vague  but  credible  reports  of  fine 
trout  streams  such  as  I  had  suspected  behind  that 
long,  dim  barrier,  all  free  to  the  angler.  From  some 
adventurous  soul  in  our  extremely  agricultural  neigh- 
bourhood, who  had  once  made  a  far  journey  into  the 
hills,  I  gathered  that  the  Whiteadder  was  the  principal 
river,  and  that  a  certain  small  inn  upon  its  banks 
would  provide  sufficient  accommodation.  Referring 
to  the  map,  I  then  found  that  the  main  line  running 
south  from  our  station  to  Berwick  touched  a  point 
within  seven  miles  of  the  aforesaid  inn,  namely,  at  the 
already  mentioned  station  of  Grant's  House.  There 
was  apparently,  however,  no  road  to  it  for  much  of  the 
way,  nor  is  there  now,  and  in  any  case  no  likelihood 
of  getting  a  conveyance.  In  the  meantime  I  had 
kindled  the  enthusiasm  of  an  Irish  companion  of  my 
own  age  who  hailed  from  the  foot  of  the  Slieve  Bloom 
mountains  in  the  Queen's  County,  and  as  a  fisherman 
was  easily  persuaded  that  he,  too,  felt  those  shadowy 
Lammermuirs  calling  to  him  that  the  trout  were  on 
the  move.  We  had  a  third  recruit  for  our  voyage  of 
discovery,  an  East  Anglian  of  slightly  more  years,  who 
had  never  even  seen  a  trout  and  professed  no  desire 
to  see  one,  but  as  an  enthusiastic  agriculturalist  was 
consumed  with  meritorious  curiosity  to  see  what 
manner  of  a  sheep  country  lay  within  these  mysterious 
hills  that  day  in  and  day  out  bounded  our  horizon 
from  east  to  west.  So,  bearing  knapsacks  and  fishing 
tackle,  we  dropped  off  the  train  on  a  cool  March 
morning  at  the  little  station  called  after  the  man 
Grant,  who  in  those  days  kept  the  only  house  near  it, 
to  wit,  the  inn.     After  due  inquiry  we  headed  for 

349 


CLEAR  WATERS 

our  destination  across  the  ridges  of  half-enclosed  moor- 
land— since  then  wholly  enclosed — that  opened  on  to 
the  wilder  Lammermuirs.  It  was  still  all  very  wintry, 
but  I  remembered  Exmoor  and  my  friend  recalled  the 
Slieve  Bloom,  and  how  the  moorland  trout  in  both 
were  well  on  the  go  by  now  in  open  weather.  The 
wind  at  any  rate  was  in  the  west,  if  nothing  else  felt 
spring-like  but  the  sunshine.  We  were  half-way  to 
EUemford,  our  destination — upon  the  hill,  in  fact,  that 
we  had  to  descend  to  Abbey  St.  Bathans — ^when  the 
Whiteadder  burst  suddenly  into  view  beneath  us.  We 
were  expecting  a  Httle  moorland  river,  and  here 
glittering  below,  broad  and  buoyant,  for  a  full  half- 
mile,  was  a  noble  stream  indeed,  a  hundred  feet  wide 
if  it  was  a  foot.  That  moment  abides  with  me  yet. 
The  Irishman  and  I  waved  our  hats  and  shouted  with 
delight.  The  sedate  East  Anglian,  somewhat  our 
senior,  looked  with  more  restrained  approval  on  a 
sample  of  landscape  that  to  him  was  a  complete 
novelty. 

So  we  dropped  down  into  the  valley  by  a  steep, 
rocky  brae,  nowadays  densely  covered  with  plantations, 
and  crossed  the  broad  river  by  the  same  high  suspension 
footbridge  that  I  often  cross  to-day.  The  stream 
ran  full  and  strong  beneath  us,  of  a  clear  amber  colour, 
and  in  good  condition.  This,  indeed,  was  something 
like  a  river !  It  was  better  even  than  Exmoor,  I 
exclaimed  in  my  joy,  while  my  companion  swore  by 
all  the  saints  of  Erin  that  the  Slieve  Bloom  streams 
could  not  compare  with  it,  which  was  quite  true,  and 
I  came  to  know  them  well  enough  in  after  years. 
He  wrung  me  by  the  hand,  and  what  a  grip  he  had ! 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

and  blessed  me  then  and  there  upon  the  swaying 
bridge.  '  To  think  of  it !  '  he  cried  ;  '  I  've  been  a 
whole  year  down  yonder  without  a  notion  that  there 
was  a  trout  within  a  hundred  miles,  and  would  have 
been  another  year  but  for  you,  and  now  look  at  this  ! 
Glory  be  to  God  ! '  We  felt  like  successful  explorers 
who  had  reached  a  longed-for  but  uncertain  goal, 
I  in  the  character  of  promoter  and  organiser,  the 
Irishman  as  a  half-doubting  but  loyal  lieutenant.  A 
friendship  commenced  upon  that  day  which  grew 
intimate  beyond  the  common,  and  lasted  till  a  quarter 
of  a  century  later,  when  the  speaker  fired  his  last  shot 
and  threw  his  last  fly  in  my  company  among  his  own 
Irish  moors.  We  had  still,  however,  three  miles  to 
travel  up  the  river  bank  to  our  inn,  our  enthusiasm 
growing  as  each  fresh  pool  or  rocky  run  displayed 
itself  to  our  eager  gaze.  And,  indeed,  even  at  this 
day,  as  I  wander  betimes,  with  or  without  a  rod,  up 
those  three  miles  of  unencumbered  open  water  be- 
tween Abbey  and  Ellemford,  I  feel  ready  at  all  times 
to  make  an  oath  that  there  is  no  finer-looking  bit  of 
trout  water  in  the  whole  kingdom. 

However  that  may  be,  we  found  our  inn,  which  we 
came  afterwards  to  know  so  well ;  a  simple-enough 
little  hostelry  by  the  river  bank,  now  long  closed, 
but  in  those  days  not  without  some  modest  fame 
among  anglers  from  Edinburgh  to  Newcastle.  Nowa- 
days both  the  bed  and  board  it  then  afforded  would 
be  scouted  by  the  average  angler,  but  we  weren't  so 
fastidious  in  the  early  seventies.  It  was  owned  by  a 
couple  in  delicate  health,  but  managed  by  their  sister, 
a  rare  specimen  of  the  blunt,  honest,  ready-tongued, 

35.1 


CLEAR  WATERS 

capable  Scottish  spinster  of  those  days,  a  great  favourite 
with  her  generation  of  anglers,  masterful  as  became 
a  benignant  despot,  and  always  capable  of  giving  a 
little  better  than  she  got  in  the  way  of  chaff  or  banter. 
Her  self-sacrificing  nobility  of  character  we  none  of  us 
realised,  and  I  only  learned  long  after  she  was  dead. 

At  this  first  acquaintance  the  little  inn  was  surprised 
to  see  us,  as  well  it  may  have  been,  but  braced  itself 
to  the  extent  of  ham  and  eggs,  and  the  afternoon  lay 
before  us.  The  East  AngUan  started  off  to  inspect 
the  nearest  sheep-farm,  and  we  with  trembhng  and 
eager  hands  rigged  up  our  rods.  We  could  have  taken 
our  time,  for  not  a  trout  responded  to  our  Irish  and 
Devonshire  flies,  the  local  patterns  not  yet  having 
been  revealed  to  us.  But  it  was  not  the  flies  that 
caused  us  half  an  hour  or  so  of  disappointment,  but 
our  own  unseasonable  appearance  and  the  increasing 
cold  of  the  day.  Of  a  sudden,  however,  I  heard  a 
shout  from  the  Irishman  at  the  next  corner  pool,  and 
noticed  him  waving  his  spare  arm  wildly,  upon  which 
I  hastened  to  the  scene,  and  found  him  running  back 
and  forth  behind  a  heavy  fish  that  had  apparently 
taken  possession  of  him.  The  bow  of  his  tie  had 
worked  round  to  the  back  of  his  neck — a  sure  sign,  I 
came  to  know  afterwards,  even  to  the  very  end  of  his 
life,  that  he  was  in  a  state  of  agitation.  It  was  one 
of  the  salmon  kind,  quite  obviously,  that  had  shifted 
his  neckgear  this  time,  and  in  due  course  we  got  him 
safely  out  on  a  shelving  beach,  a  three-pounder  more 
or  less,  but  to  which  of  the  salmon  kind  he  belonged 
we  had  no  notion.  To  shorten  the  story,  we  got  six 
of  these  brutes  between  us  that  afternoon,  and  quite 

352 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

enjoyed  ourselves,  though  we  never  so  much  as  saw 
a  trout.  When  we  got  back  to  the  inn,  whose  simple 
proprietors,  curiously  enough,  were  not  at  all  fish-wise, 
we  did  learn  that  our  fish  were  bull  trout,  which  to 
our  southern  ears  meant  nothing  at  all.  But  being  ob- 
viously of  the  salmon  kind,  it  did  occur  to  us  rather  late 
in  the  day  that  they  must  be  kelts,  and  that  it  was 
illegal  to  kill  them.  The  inn  people  didn't  know 
anything  about  this.  All  they  knew  about  fish  was 
how  to  cook  them,  and  that  they  understood  to 
perfection.  When  we  awoke  next  morning  the  whole 
country  was  under  six  inches  of  snow,  and  we  began 
to  realise  how  previous  we  had  been  in  our  eagerness 
after  the  trout,  so  there  was  nothing  for  it  now  but 
to  go  home.  The  innkeeper  proposed  to  drive  us  to 
Duns,  five  miles  off,  in  his  spring  cart,  whence  by  a 
protracted  railway  journey  we  could  get  back  to  Drem. 
By  this  time  we  had  half  convinced  ourselves  that 
the  six  big  fish,  weighing  some  fifteen  pounds  between 
them,  were  sufficient  to  bring  us  red-handed  into  the 
police  courts.  We  were  determined,  however,  having 
nothing  else  to  show,  to  take  them  home,  if  only  to 
save  our  faces  against  the  gibes  of  our  non-angling 
household,  who  had  regarded  our  enterprise  as  a 
foolish  sort  of  adventure.  Such  a  display  in  such 
unsophisticated  quarters  would,  on  the  other  hand, 
be  a  great  triumph.  And  it  was  now  that  the  Irish- 
man planned,  and  quite  characteristically,  what  seemed, 
if  our  ideas  were  correct,  a  most  gorgeous  practical 
joke.  Nothing  had  been  said  of  the  supposed  illegality 
of  our  haul  to  the  East  Anglian.  And  in  the  characters 
our  little  company  down  in  East  Lothian  chose  to 

Z  353 


CLEAR  WATERS 

attribute  to  its  respective  members  he  was  pre- 
eminently its  sedate  and  serious-minded  one,  a  person 
proof  against  every  folly  of  youth,  even  sport,  but  who 
looked  on  our  enthusiasms  with  kindly  toleration  and 
philosophical  good-humour,  and  with  something  of 
a  twinkling  eye.  So  it  was  arranged  that  our  im- 
maculate and  unsuspecting  friend  should  go  home  by 
dog-cart  and  train  bearing  in  the  most  open  fashion 
we  could  devise  our,  as  we  supposed,  illegal  haul. 
The  price  we  were  to  pay  for  the  enjoyment  we  ex- 
pected to  derive  from  our  nefarious  design  was  a 
twenty-mile  walk  home  across  country,  which  we  pro- 
fessed the  greatest  desire  for.  And  as  we  tramped 
across  the  snow-covered  moors,  and  later  along  the 
muddy  roads  of  East  Lothian,  we  chuckled  horribly 

at  the  notion  of  dear  old  D ,  of  all  people  in  the 

world,  being  challenged,  bantered,  and  even  sum- 
monsed and  led  away  to  durance-vile  for  flourishing 
about  in  a  market-town  and  two  or  three  subsequent 
railway  junctions  with  an  armful  of  kelts.  It  seemed 
simply  glorious,  and  infinitely  solaced  our  long  and 
weary  way.  Many  were  the  conjectures  as  to  his 
fate,  or  at  any  rate  his  adventures,  as  we  drew  near 
home,  and  saw  the  lights  of  our  common  domicile 
shining  through  the  gloom.  Deep,  I  fear,  our  dis- 
appointment when  we  found  our  would-be  victim 
composedly  smoking  his  pipe  before  the  fire  without 
a  trace  of  past  troubles  or  discomfort  upon  his  benevo- 
lent face.  The  briefest  inquiry  satisfied  us  that  nothing 
at  all  had  happened,  and  the  ugly  fish  were  all  hanging 
up  safe  in  the  larder,  objects  of  admiration  to  the  rest 
of  the  unsophisticated  household.     If  our  little  joke 

L.„  354 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

had  missed  fire  for  the  excellent  reason  that  bull- 
trout kelts,  so  far  from  being  illegal  booty,  were  then 
regarded  as  undesirables  of  which  the  river  was  well 
rid,  we  had  at  least  the  domestic  triumph  of  a  good 
basket  of  what  passed,  more  or  less,  for  salmon.  The 
household  ate  them  with  apparent  appreciation.  The 
Irishman  and  I  did  not  take  any.  We  knew  enough 
for  that ! 

That  was  my  first  experience  of  the  Whiteadder, 
but  many  and  many  a  good  day  I  had  subsequently 
with  my  Irish  friend,  and  others,  and  we  must  have 
taken  many  a  hundred  trout  out  of  it  between  us  in 
various  visits  in  the  course  of  the  two  or  three  follow- 
ing years.  It  was  open  fishing,  as  it  mostly  is  to-day, 
and  a  good  deal  fished  even  then  by  anglers  from 
Edinburgh,  Newcastle,  and  elsewhere,  and  sometimes 
even  as  now  the  scene  of  fishing-club  competitions. 
Whether  there  were  more  trout  in  this  quite  remark- 
able river  in  those  remote  days  than  in  these,  who 
shall  say  ?  Everybody  of  course  says  there  were.  But 
after  all  it  is  extremely  few  people  who  can  speak  out 
of  their  own  experience,  and  even  then  one  knows  the 
temptation  to  belaud  the  past.  I  have  been  amused 
betimes  to  hear  a  younger  generation  refer  to  the 
Whiteadder  in  their  father's  day  as  if  it  was  stiff  with 
trout  which  would  rise  at  your  hat.  The  trout  did 
nothing  of  the  kind,  and,  moreover,  had  daily  oppor- 
tunities of  distinguishing  between  the  artificial  and 
the  natural  insect.  A  south  countryman  would  have 
called  the  river  very  heavily  fished  in  the  early  seventies. 
I  have  myself  seen  eight  rods  upon  it,  between  EUem- 
ford  and  Abbey  St.  Bathans,  for  two  or  three  consecutive 

355 


CLEAR  WATERS 

days  in  April  and  May,  and  this  was,  and  is,  in  the  more 
inaccessible  and  less  fished  half  of  the  river.     After  an 
interval  of  half  a  lifetime  my  own  experiences  of  recent 
years  have  only  been  at  the  back-end  of  the  season, 
which  is  of  small  avail  for  comparisons  with  spring  and 
early  summer  results  in  the  long  ago.     But  I  have  had 
ample  opportunity  to  see  that  at  any  rate  there  is  still 
a  fine  stock  of  trout,  though  such  remarks  are  utterly 
superfluous  when  weighed-in  baskets,  as  I  have  related, 
are  published  regularly  in  the  daily  press.     Nay,  more, 
if  any  more  is  wanted ;  for  as  I  write  these  very  lines 
the  postman  hands  in  a  letter  with  the  Berwick  post- 
mark.    It  is  from  a  friend  up  there  and  not  concerned 
with  fishing.     But  there  is  a  brief  PS.     *  I  went  up 
to  the  Whiteadder  yesterday,  and  got  nine  pounds.' 
Let   the   owner  of  a   rapid  river  who   thinks  a  rod 
over  it  every  other  day  a  bit  of  a  strain  take  note  and 
mark.     For  nine  pounds  is  a  very  nice  basket  indeed, 
even  in  closely  preserved  water.     But  it  is  only  what 
my  correspondent  expects  to  get  in  reasonable  weather, 
and  usually  does  get  on  this  free  water,  and  he  can  fish 
some  of  the  best  preserves  in  Northumberland  if  he 
choses.     I  wish  the  Fly  Fishers'  club  would  appoint 
a  committee  to  examine  and  take  evidence  on  the 
Whiteadder  and  its  neighbouring  streams.     It  would 
reveal  a  condition  of  things  and  possibilities  that  would 
astonish   the   average   angler,  and   cause   the  normal 
owner  and  preserver  of  fast  water,  who  was  a  kindly 
man  and  not  a  hopeless  egotist,  to  think  furiously. 
My  old  fishing  companion  of  these  early  days  and  of 
many  much  later  ones — the  Irishman — was  the  most 
remarkable  blend,  in  the  sporting  sense,  that  I  ever 
356 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

knew.  He  was  recognised  as  the  finest  man  to  hounds 
in  a  whole  community  of  hard  riders.  He  was  as 
sound  a  shot  of  the  old-fashioned  type  as  I  ever  saw, 
and  a  past  master  in  an  art  of  which  the  new-fashioned 
type  knows  nothing,  that  of  handling  dogs  in  the  field. 
Extraordinarily  keen  as  he  was  in  both  of  these  depart- 
ments of  sport,  he  was  equally  fond  of  trout-fishing. 
Indeed  I  have  known  few  keener  anglers  from  boy- 
hood to  the  very  end  of  his  life,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
none  of  his  local  sporting  friends  and  neighbours  cared 
a  button  about  it. 

But  here  comes  in  the  curious  part  of  the  business, 
in  that  he  was  the  most  indifferent  fisherman,  for  a 
regular  disciple,  that  is,  that  I  ever  knew.  And 
trouting  isn't  after  all  quite  like  hunting  and  shooting 
or  athletic  diversions.  Every  one  who  is  bred  up  to 
it  and  follows  it  consistently  must  arrive  at  a  certain 
point  of  excellence.  Up  to  that  point  it  isn't  so  much 
a  question  of  eye  or  hand  or  nerve  or  physique  as  of 
mere  experience,  though  many  of  course  pass  this 
stage  and  are  super-excellent,  having  some  special 
gift,  as  we  all  of  us  know.  But  my  old  friend  never 
reached  the  ordinary  average  of  an  habitual  fisherman. 
It  always  seemed  to  me  an  unaccountable  thing  that 
a  man  with  beautiful  hands  on  a  horse  and  an  un- 
erring aim  at  a  snipe,  a  grouse,  or  a  partridge  should 
never  have  been  able  to  acquire  whatever  it  is  that 
the  normal  angler  of  experience  possesses.  Most  of 
my  fishing  companions  through  life  have  killed  very 
much  the  same  baskets  as  myself,  while  a  few  have  done 
consistently  better,  which  is  in  the  natural  order 
of  things.     But  this  most  accomplished,  ardent,  and 

357 


CLEAR  WATERS 

thorough  sportsman,  who  both  in  youth  and  middle 
age  was  my  frequent  and  of  all  others  most  delightful 
companion  by  the  riverside,  had  scarcely  ever  more 
than  half  my  basket,  and  he  always  worked  very  hard. 
But  where  the  mystery  lay  I  really  do  not  know,  any 
more  than  I  do  not  know  why  certain  men  always  catch 
the  most  in  any  company.  I  have  watched  him  again 
and  again  without  being  much  the  wiser.  It  was 
rather  a  sore  point,  I  am  sure,  though  in  all  the  years 
he  never  uttered  a  single  word  upon  the  subject,  and 
from  some  subconscious  instinct  neither  did  I,  though 
we  were  very  intimate.  It  never  affected  his  unfailing 
cheerfulness  by  the  water-side,  though  it  was  a  frequent 
source  of  mortification  to  myself. 

Moreover,  he  had  two  fairish  trouting  rivers,  of 
which  he  owned  some  four  miles,  under  his  very 
windows.  But  he  would  often  drive  or  even  walk 
long  distances  to  fish  other  and  wilder  streams  from 
sheer  love  of  the  sport,  and  of  a  variety  of  scene  and 
water ;  and  I  think  some  of  these  long  April  or  May 
days  by  streams  unknown  to  fame  that  I  spent  with 
him  are  among  the  most  treasured  of  my  angling 
memories.  A  mutual  and  breezy  friend  of  ours,  who 
was  a  super-excellent  fisherman,  but  no  respecter  of 
susceptibilities,  used  to  tell  him  he  killed  his  fish  by 
hitting  them  on  the  head  with  his  fly  and  stunning 
them.  He  didn't  like  this,  and  indeed  it  was  purely 
hyperbolic,  for  he  threw  quite  a  reasonable  line,  and 
had  the  eye  of  a  hawk  for  everything  with  wings  or 
legs.  When  I  speak  of  our  respective  baskets,  using 
the  ego  merely  as  representing  the  average  fisherman, 
I  am  not  quoting  loosely  from  memory  ;  for  my 
358 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

friend,  if  not  unique  in  the  curiously  conflicting  nature 
of  his  sporting  endowments,  was  most  assuredly  so  in 
one  particular  achievement  of  his  life.  I  do  not 
believe  that  another  man  ever  lived  who,  from  boy- 
hood to  the  close  of  his  life,  which  in  this  case  ended 
at  forty-six,  kept  a  strict  account  of  every  single  day's 
hunting,  shooting,  and  fishing.  And  this,  too,  in  the 
case  of  a  modest  stay-at-home  Irish  country  gentle- 
man, who  followed  all  these  pursuits  assiduously — and 
above  all  hated  writing !  I  regard  this,  for  some 
years  in  my  possession,  as  in  its  way  the  most  curious 
document  of  the  kind  in  existence — not  for  the  informa- 
tion it  contains,  for  it  is  merely  a  record  of  little 
more  than  bare  figures — but  it  is  all  enclosed  in  a 
single  fat  manuscript  book,  the  early  pages  of  which 
were  quite  faded  and  yellow,  while  the  last  were  still 
being  written.  What  is  more,  on  its  title-page  was 
the  boyish  scrawl  with  which  so  many  of  us  at  that 
callow  period  have  commenced  a  diary  of  some  sort 
with  the  best  of  intentions,  that  may  have  lasted  six 

months  !    This  one  was  entitled, '  J H T , 

His  Sporting  Diary,  1865.'  It  began  with  hunting  days 
on  a  pony,  shooting  exploits  with  a  single  barrel,  and 
trouting  in  the  home  streams,  and  plodded  on 
methodically  without  a  break  for  thirty  years,  un- 
clouded by  a  single  spell  of  illness,  and  ending  with  a 
pathetic  entry,  because  so  utterly  unconscious  at  the 
moment  of  writing  of  what  it  meant.  '  Sept.  20  [the 
opening  day,  then,  of  Irish  partridge  shooting] : — Shoot- 
ing with   B [myself].     Felt  seedy;   went  home 

midday.'  This  was  the  last  word,  the  end  of  every- 
thing, the  sudden  and  early  break-up  of  an  apparently 

359 


CLEAR  WATERS 

iron  constitution  overtaxed,  no  doubt,  by  unceasing 
physical  activities.  As  regards  this  concentrated 
record  between  two  covers  of  a  whole  life's  sport, 
the  hunting  being  continuous,  and  including  two  years 
of  acting  M.F.H.,  naturally  took  up  most  space, 
namely,  from  one  to  three  lines  of  small  writing  per 
day,  giving  the  covers  drawn  or  points  of  a  run,  and 
the  horse  ridden.  For  shooting,  there  is  the  beat 
shot,  the  companions,  if  any,  the  setters  out,  and  the 
bag.  For  fishing,  the  stretch  of  water,  the  companion, 
if  any,  and  precisely  what  each  caught.  That  last  is 
a  curious  note  under  the  circumstances  above  related, 
and  runs  right  through  all  the  years,  for  the  game  bags, 
which  would  have  usually  told  another  story,  are  rarely 
thus  apportioned.^ 

Often  in  the  later  years,  when  I  was  over  in  Ireland, 
the  book,  always  kept  locked  up,  used  to  be  produced 
after  dinner,  and  its  author  used  to  deUght  in  reading 
out  the  rather  faded  notes  of  our  youthful  days 
together  on  the  Lammermuirs,  or  in  Ireland.  There 
were  no  fish  Hes  here  !  Just  the  precise  number  we 
each  basketed,  the  water  fished,  the  weather,  and 
perhaps  the  flies  used.  But  these  bald  entries  stirred 
the  chords  of  memory  fast  enough,  and  with  pipes 
and  hot  punch  before  the  blazing  peat  fire  of  the 
snug  little  smoking-room,  we  used  to  kiU  our  fish  all 
over  again,  and  meet  aU  our  old  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances of  those  days  once  more.     And  then  came  the 

1  The  text  as  above  might  suggest  an  idle,  useless  life.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  a  more  unostentatiously  useful  existence  in  all  matters  connected  with 
agriculture  and  county  business  would  be  difficult  to  imagine — above  all,  in 
Ireland.     This  indeed  kept  within  limits  the  sporting  days  to  be  recorded. 

360 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

solemn  performance  of  recording  the  day  just  passed, 
if  it  was  one  for  recording,  and  the  owner  of  this 
extraordinary  volume  carried  it  to  his  standing  desk,  and 
pulled  himself  together  with  the  portentously  solemn 
expression  that  his  humorous  face  always  assumed 
when  any  writing  had  to  be  done.  Then  there  was 
a  brief  silence,  and  the  pen  scratched  away  probably 
something  like  this,  as  it  was  generally  shooting  in  those 
later  days  : — '  Ballyragget  bog  and  Dromanore.     Self 

and   B .     Dogs,    Dash  and  Nell — 16  partridges, 

6  snipe,  i  hare,  2  grouse,  2  golden  plover,  2  wood 
pigeons,  i  ptarmigan.'  The  last  item,  I  may  set  down 
with  a  blush,  was  the  local  for  pheasant,  which  when 
met  with  wild  on  the  bog  edge  or  mountain  was  not 
treated  with  ceremony  after  20th  September,  even 
by  a  J. P.,  for  excellent  reasons  not  relevant  here. 
And  it  must  be  remembered  this  was  Ireland,  not 
Norfolk.  When  the  book  was  closed,  and  its  owner 
in  his  grave  under  the  Slieve  Bloom  mountains,  it 
was  sent  to  me,  together,  at  my  request,  with  a  certain 
rather  wobbly,  top-heavy  rod,  and  a  time-worn  game- 
bag.  The  book  was  returned  not  long  ago,  when  a 
certain  infant  now  sailing  the  seas  in  one  of  His 
Majesty's  battleships  reached  something  like  man's 
estate.  The  wobbly  rod  and  the  tattered  game-bag 
remain  with  me  as  cherished  relics.  For  the  race 
has  run  its  course  like  so  many  in  Ireland,  so  far  as  its 
old  abiding  place  is  concerned.  Its  extremely  modest 
record  no  longer  figures  in  the  latest  editions  of  Burke. 
The  old  ivy-clad  house  peeping  down  the  beech  avenue 
is,  I  believe,  replaced  or  obscured  by  the  vulgar  erection 
of  a  political  patriot  who  has  prospered,  like  so  many 

361 


CLEAR  WATERS 

of  them,  on  retailing  whisky  and  groceries,  coupled 
with  much  profitable  usury. 

There  was  one  particular  entry  which  always  gave 
us  food  for  reminiscence.     It  ran — ^June  ist,  1871  : — 

Fished  Dye.    Self  32,  B 44 :  two  fish  over  a  pound.' 

The  Dye  is  a  beautiful  stream  running  down  from  the 
moors  about  Longformacus,  and  thence  rippling  over 
pasture  lands  to  join  the  Whiteadder  at  EUemford. 
It  wasn't  for  the  numbers,  which,  though  rather 
flattering  to  the  diarist,  were  not  otherwise  note- 
worthy. But  we  had  traversed  some  thirty  miles  that 
day,  otter-hunting  down  in  the  Merse  of  Berwickshire  ; 
and  it  was  only  after  a  belated  meal  at  about  four 
o'clock  that  we  left  our  inn  for  the  Dye,  a  mile  distant. 
For  some  reason,  I  remember  that  afternoon  with 
extraordinary  clarity.  I  can  almost  smell  it  now — the 
fragrance  of  the  gorse  and  quickening  meadow  grass, 
the  odour  of  recently  penned  sheep,  with  faint  whiffs 
of  peat  smoke  from  the  cottages,  all  accentuated  by  a 
warm  sun  bursting  out  between  plumping  showers. 
The  drake  was  up,  and  we  caught,  as  the  chronicle 
relates,  some  seventy  and  odd  fish  far  above  the  average 
Whiteadder  size,*and  were  back  at  the  inn  by  sunset, 
pretty  well  exhausted  with  so  prodigious  a  day,  which 
had  begun  at  four  in  the  morning. 

Far  up  in  the  heart  of  the  moors,  beyond  the  famous 
sheep  farms  of  Cranshaws,  with  its  noble  peel  tower, 
and  of  Priestlaw  with  its  sweeps  of  solitude,  the  Fasney 
water,  a  large  troutful  burn  comes  pouring  down 
its  peaty  streams  into  the  Whiteadder,  and  the  two 
large  burns  uniting  become  at  once  a  quite  respect- 
able river.  There  are  a  few  large  fish  even  thus  high 
362 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

up.  It  was  some  way  above  this,  at  a  point  where  you 
can  easily  spring  across  the  Whiteadder,  that  in  youth 
I  suffered  the  disappointment  of  all  my  days  on  this 
river,  and  lost  the  largest  trout  I  ever  fairly  hooked  in 
it.  The  water  was  on  this  occasion  so  low  and  clear 
that  I  had  mounted  a  horse-hair  cast,  and  a  fish  nearer 
two  pounds  than  one  was  obviously  outwitted  by  the 
quite  unwonted  article.  When  it  felt  the  prick  of  the 
fly,  however,  it  leaped  clean  out  on  to  the  low,  rushy 
bank,  and  rashly,  perhaps,  thinking  the  fish  would  break 
me  anyhow,  I  made  an  instant  dash  for  it.  But  in  its 
untaxed  vigour  it  slipped  through  my  fingers  and  was 
gone,  fly  and  all.  My  stock  of  philosophy  at  twenty 
was  not  equal  to  the  occasion.  I  sat  down  upon  the 
bank  and  almost  wept. 

I  don't  think  even  now  many  anglers  get  up  to  the 
Fasney  or  the  Whiteadder  above  their  junction.  It 
is  a  long,  long  way  from  anywhere,  though  a  crow  could 
flv  to  Edinburgh  in  thirty  miles.  But  then  an  angling 
biped  isn't  a  crow.  Nowadays  he  is  not  often  an  en- 
thusiastic pedestrian,  and  the  narrow  road  that  edges 
along  the  hillsides  to  the  source  of  the  Whiteadder 
is  of  a  primitive  description  and  not  well  adapted  to 
any  of  his  mechanical  aids  to  travel.  Nor  again  is 
bed  and  board  to  be  had  nowadays  within  the  Lam- 
mermuirs.  The  few  inhabitants  are,  I  believe,  dis- 
couraged, if  not  prohibited,  from  affording  it,  for 
obvious  reasons.  It  is  a  fine  wild  country  where  the 
infant  Whiteadder  and  the  brawling  Fasney  join  their 
waters,  though  in  a  sense  so  near  to  the  heart  of  things. 
It  is  much  more  lonely  than  the  heart  of  Exmoor  or 
Dartmoor  nowadays,  to  make  a  comparison  so  many 

363 


CLEAR  WATERS 

can  appreciate.  There  is  not  a  tourist  in  the  whole 
country,  not  a  human  being  on  the  whole  wide  waste 
but  a  stray  shepherd.  The  curlews  call,  the  drubbing 
pewits  make  unceasing  clamour,  the  grouse  cluck,  the 
burns  murmur,  and  the  black-faced  sheep  bleat,  and 
in  August  for  miles  and  miles  the  hills  are  aglow  with 
the  purple  flare  of  their  thick  coat  of  heather.  A  line 
of  butts  here  and  there  upon  a  ridge  outlined  against 
the  sky  are  a  modern  innovation  and  a  rather  inhar- 
monious note  upon  the  wild.  But  the  stock  of  grouse 
has,  I  believe,  doubled  and  trebled  since  I  first  knew 
the  country  when  burning  was  but  irregularly  prac- 
tised and  a  small  company  of  guns  followed  their  dogs 
through  such  a  tangle  of  heather  as  nature  laid  before 
them.  Little  strips  of  the  Whiteadder,  from  its  source 
to  its  mouth,  usually  in  the  policies  (anglice  private 
grounds  or  park),  are  kept  as  private  water.  And  even 
the  Lowland  Scottish  angling  public,  that  has  views 
fundamentally  different  from  its  English  equivalent 
on  these  matters,  regards  such  sanctuaries  without 
disfavour.  The  same  spider  flies,  with  slight  variation, 
are  used  on  the  Whiteadder  as  were  in  vogue  forty 
years  ago  and  were  so  much  associated  with  Stewart's 
then  redoubtable  name.  Red  hackles,  black  hackles 
with  orange  body,  snipe  hackle  with  purple  body, 
and  two  or  three  other  spider  varieties  probably  ac- 
count for  a  majority  of  all  the  fish  killed  in  the  river 
and  its  tributaries. 

Scotsmen  are  strong  conservatives  in  the  matter  of 
fishing  as  they  are  in  so  many  other  things  not  im- 
mediately connected  with  a  general  election.     And 
indeed,  as  to  that,  any  Scottish  tory  will  tell  you  that 
364 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

the  strength  of  the  opposition  he  has  to  encounter  lies 
not  so  much  in  the  hankering  after  new  and  strange 
things  but  in  the  stubborn  adherence  to  old  party- 
lines  that  arose  from  conditions  which  have  long 
passed  away,  and  of  which  the  average  modern  voter 
knows  nothing  at  all.  You  will  see  rods  in  use  that 
have  long  vanished,  and  with  good  reason,  from  English 
river-sides.  There  may  still  be  seen  here  the  wobbly 
eleven-  or  twelve-footer,  heavy  for  one  hand  yet  hardly 
demanding  two,  that  recall  one's  boyhood,  when  the 
ethics  of  rod-making  were  in  a  torpid  condition  and 
a  hardy  superstition  still  held  the  field,  which  fitted 
a  rod  to  a  stream  by  a  sort  of  geometrical  process 
almost  as  you  might  measure  a  man  for  a  suit  of 
clothes.  That  some  of  these  unhandy  implements 
should  be  still  wielded  by  blacksmiths  or  rural  dominies 
or  postmen  of  the  older  generation  would  be  nothing, 
but  you  frequently  see  them  in  the  hands  of  a  young 
and  different  type  of  angler,  who  has  obviously  none 
of  these  reasons  for  adhering  to  a  weapon  that  has 
nothing  to  recommend  it. 

The  south  countryman  is  apt  to  go  to  the  opposite 
extreme  and  to  fuss  about  technicalities  in  rods  and 
the  pattern  of  flies  before  he  has  acquired  a  reasonable 
knowledge  of  how  to  use  either.  The  tyro  is  be- 
wildered, and  no  wonder,  by  the  printed  fly-lore  of 
some  famous  expert,  not  being  able  to  read  into  it  a 
due  sense  of  proportion.  And  then  daunted  at  the 
seeming  prospect  of  having  to  graduate  in  the  abstruse 
science  of  entomology  before  he  can  hope  to  become 
a  fisherman  lie  liails  with  relief  the  advertisement  of 
a  new  patent  fiy.     It  is  not  like  anything  in  the  heavens 

365 


CLEAR  WATERS 

above  or  on  the  waters  beneath,  nor  made  of  materials 
hitherto  familiar  to  fly  dressers,  but  perhaps  for  that 
very  reason  irresistible  to  the  jaded  appetites  of  the  most 
fastidious  trout.  So  at  least  say  the  testimonials  with 
undoubtedly  bona-fide  signatures.  Our  young  friend, 
though  he  is  not  always  young,  is  inclined  to  begin  at 
the  wrong  end.  If  he  would  cease  to  worry  himself 
and  wait  till  he  gets  down  to  the  district  of  his  choice, 
and  there  secure  from  the  more  or  less  local  tackle- 
maker  the  patterns  which  the  local  expert  swears  by, 
they  will  be  at  least  quite  good  enough  for  him.  I 
ought,  I  suppose,  to  blush  in  confessing  the  fact  that 
they  have  always  been  quite  good  enough  for  me. 
It  is  unenterprising,  no  doubt,  but  I  admit  to  having 
always  been  something  of  a  slave  to  local  prejudices 
and  rather  a  good  customer  to  the  man  on  the  spot, 
or  at  any  rate  to  the  man  who  provides  those  on  the 
spot  with  such  patterns  as  they  demand  of  him.  This, 
too,  involves  the  confession  that  I  have  tied  no  flies 
myself  since  almost  boyhood.  Life  has  always  seemed 
too  short.  For  those  dozen  or  more  years,  when  early 
habits  are  confirmed,  it  was  impossible,  and  both  the 
habits  and  the  impulse  proved  afterwards  irrecover- 
able. I  have  consoled  myself  with  the  plausible  and 
common  excuse  that  my  samples  would  probably  be 
less  effective  than  those  of  the  professional  fly-tier. 
Still  I  admit  that  this  has  never  quite  satisfied  me  even 
when  I  think  of  so  many  really  first-class  wet-fly  fisher- 
men who  have  never  made  a  fly  in  their  lives. 

As  to  that  redundancy  of  equipment  with  which 
the  embryo  angler  is  apt  to  burden  both  his  fly-book 
and  his  mind,  it  is  a  form  in  miniature  of  the  lavishness 
366 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

characteristic  of  Englishmen,  and  always  noticeable 
to  the  alien  eye,  since  the  first  alien  recorded  his 
impressions  of  us.  The  Englishman  who  can  afford  it, 
and  sometimes  when  he  cannot,  loves  an  outfit — a 
trousseau.  All  the  world  over,  whether  as  settler  in 
a  new  country  or  as  a  mere  traveller,  he  is  notorious 
for  the  superfluity  of  impedimenta  he  drags  around 
with  him.  The  anxiety  to  provide  against  every 
emergency,  possible  and  impossible,  with  just  a  touch 
of  the  national  thriftlessness  in  spending,  or  what 
seems  so  to  most  other  races,  shows  itself  even  in  such 
a  trifle  as  the  tyro's  congested  fly-book  or  box.  It  is 
an  *  outfit '  automatically  inevitable  in  his  eyes,  and 
an  Englishman  or  an  English-woman,  as  I  have  said, 
dearly  loves  a  trousseau.  The  percentage  of  wastage 
in  the  outfits  of  English  men  and  women  of  all  kinds 
in  the  last  two  centuries  probably  runs  into  millions. 

Except  that  the  flies  used  are  smaller,  I  do  not  think 
the  taste  in  patterns,  with  the  strong  proclivity  for 
spiders,  has  altered  much  on  the  Scottish  border. 
Certainly  the  Whiteadder  expert  kills  wonderful  baskets 
under  the  circumstances  of  his  much-fished-for  trout 
with  a  very  limited  selection.  Stewart,  fifty  years 
ago,  who,  the  reader  may  be  again  reminded,  was 
accounted  the  best  trout  fisherman  on  the  Border, 
which  assuredly  meant  the  best  fisherman  in  Scotland, 
considered  that  some  half  a  dozen  patterns  were  suffi- 
cient for  any  one.  He  and  Mr.  Francis  Frances,  then 
fishing  editor  of  the  Field,  and  author  of  a  work  that 
was  the  delight  of  my  boyhood,  had  much  wordy 
warfare  on  the  subject.  Neither  had  much  conception 
of  the  other's  environment,  circumstances,  and  tradi- 

367 


CLEAR  WATERS 

tions,  and  it  was  a  quite  futile  though  entertaining  duel, 
so  far  as  the  echoes  of  it,  which  lasted  into  my  time, 
come  back  to  me. .  Perhaps  the  incident  stuck  in  my 
mind  because,  at  a  period  when  one's  experience 
was  inevitably  limited,  I  had  met  the  northern 
champion  on  the  river  bank,  while  his  south  country 
opponent  about  the  same  time  had  given  me  my  first 
encouragement  at  literary  effort,  a  thing  one  never 
forgets. 

The  Blackadder,  like  the  Whiteadder  and  many 
other  fine  streams  unknown  to  the  outer  world,  rises 
in  the  Lammermuirs,  but  for  most  of  its  course  it 
plashes  through  the  fertile  lowlands  of  Berwickshire. 
Though  smaller  than  its  sister  river,  it  provides  some 
thirty  miles  of  trouting,  over  some  two-thirds  of 
which  the  public,  in  the  shape  of  many  scores  of 
anglers,  exercise  a  perennial  privilege  which  apparently 
has  no  serious  effect  upon  its  stock  of  trout.  I  have 
never  fished  the  Blackadder,  though  I  know  much  of 
it  well  as  a  passer-by.  It  has  but  a  moderate  share, 
however,  of  the  romance  and  charm  of  its  bigger 
sister.  The  true  rival  of  the  Whiteadder  upon  the 
eastern  march  in  this  respect,  as  indeed  in  fishing 
qualities,  and  more  renowned  in  song  and  story,  is  the 
Leader,  which,  rising  at  the  western  end  of  the 
Lammermuirs,  runs  down  through  Lauderdale  to 
join  the  Tweed  near  Melrose.  There  are  plenty  of 
men  in  Lauderdale  who  maintain  that  their  river  is 
even  better  than  the  Whiteadder.  Personally  I  do 
not  agree  with  them,  but  it  is  assuredly  a  most  beautiful 
stream,  and  I  have  fished  over  much  of  it.  It  presents 
the  same  insoluble  problem — nay,  an  even  greater 
368 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

one — as  to  why  there  should  be  any  trout  left  in  its 
waters,  or  at  any  rate  in  those  major  portions  of  them 
which  are  open  to  the  public  on  payment,  in  this 
case,  to  be  precise,  of  half-a-crown  per  annum.  To  be 
literal,  for  there  are  two  associations,  you  can  fish 
about  two-thirds  of  the  Leader  and  all  the  burns,  one 
or  two  of  which  yield  on  their  day  fat  baskets,  for  five 
shillings  a  year !  This  modest  contribution,  by  pro- 
viding watchers,  practically  ensures  the  river  against 
the  insidious  wiles  of  the  miners  from  Lanarkshire 
and  Midlothian,  concerning  whom  the  fishermen  of 
the  Whiteadder,  who  are  not  thus  protected,  cherish 
grave  suspicions. 

But  the  Leader,  winsome  and  delightful  stream  that 
it  is,  is  much  shorter  than  the  other.  Nor,  like  the 
Whiteadder,  does  it  wander  for  miles  in  the  wilderness 
comparatively  aloof  from  the  haunts  of  men.  It 
comes  into  being  quite  suddenly  where  several  burns 
break  out  of  the  Lammermuirs  at  the  foot  of  the 
Soutra  pass,  and  this  is  actually  the  head  of  Lauder- 
dale. One  of  the  great  main  roads  from  the  south 
to  Edinburgh  follows  the  river  from  its  junction  with 
the  Tweed  near  Melrose  to  its  head,  and  then  climbing 
by  zigzags  the  above-named  formidable  pass  crosses 
this  narrow  western  bit  of  the  Lammermuirs,  and 
there,  confronted  by  a  most  noble  prospect,  drops 
quickly  down  into  Midlothian.  Thousands  of  motors 
now  annually  thread  this  beautiful  and  peaceful  vale, 
with  its  wide,  level  pastures  and  spacious  homesteads. 
The  swelling  flanks  of  the  Lammermuirs  roll  from 
height  to  height  upon  either  side,  and  through  the 
green  levels  the  crystal  waters  of  the  Leader  sparkle 
2  A  369 


CLEAR  WATERS 

in  sinuous  course  from  rocky  pool  to  gravelly  shallow, 
between  open  grassy  banks.  Some  miles  lower  down 
it  leaves  the  wide,  open  pasture-land,  and  frets  and 
flashes  in  a  deep  rocky  trough  between  high  wooded 
hills  for  practically  the  rest  of  its  career.  The  Leader 
is  not  only  celebrated  in  Scottish  song,  but  it  is  quite 
a  classic  stream  among  Scottish  anglers.  I  had  heard 
its  praises  chanted  by  them  in  my  youth  over  their 
toddy  beside  the  peat  fire  at  Ellemford  and  elsewhere 
again  and  again  ;  so  when  I  made  its  acquaintance  for 
the  first  time  a  few  years  back,  its  double  claims  to 
touch  the  fancy  asserted  themselves  and  stirred 
pleasantly  within  me. 

And  is  this  Yarrow,  this  the  stream 
My  waking  fancy  cherished  ? 

I  am  sure  I  quoted  this  and  in  the  proper  spirit  as  I 
came  down  from  the  Lammermuirs  on  the  eastward 
by  *  auld  Maitland's  tower  '  one  bright  summer  after- 
noon, and  saw  the  Leader  glittering  like  a  silver  thread 
amid  its  green  haughs  below.  And  if  Leader  is  not 
Yarrow,  every  one  not  wholly  ignorant  of  Scottish 
minstrelsy  knows  very  well  the  poetic  connection 
between  the  two.  Rivers  have  assuredly  a  strong 
personality,  and  no  wonder,  for  they  are  Hve  and 
animate  things,  not  mute,  like  hills  or  buildings.  All 
fishermen  know  they  stir  the  memories  associated 
with  them  more  effectively  than  any  other  things- 
labelled  as  inanimate.  And  Uttle  rivers,  beautiful 
rivers,  if  they  have  things  to  say,  whether  of  great 
deeds  or  merely  of  memories  treasured  only  by  yourself, 
have  a  subtle  eloquence  that  no  man-made  melodies 
370 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

can  equal.  The  Leader,  for  its  size  and  length,  is 
rich  indeed  in  suggestion  for  those  who  have  ears  to 
hear,  though  it  was  not  precisely  of  the  drum  and 
trumpet  I  was  musing  when  gently  thrilled  by  my 
first  sight  of  it,  or  I  should  not  have  been  moved  to 
Wordsworthian  quotation. 

Once  more,  and  with  apologies  for  such  reiteration, 
I  really  do  not  know  why  there  are  any  trout  at  all 
in  the  Leader.  Its  very  classic  qualities  as  a  trout 
stream  should  be  dead  against  such  a  survival.  It  is 
rural  and  pastoral  and  Arcadian  enough  to  be  sure. 
But  there  are  two  little  towns  astride  of  its  short 
course,  and  pretty  nearly  every  man  and  boy  in  both, 
I  have  no  doubt,  knows  how  to  fish,  with  a  worm  at 
any  rate ;  while  Edinburgh  itself  is  only  some  twenty 
odd  miles  from  the  head  of  the  dale.  I  spent  nearly 
the  whole  of  one  recent  September  there  in  the  ancient 
little  borough  of  Lauder,  which  is  the  capital  of  the 
upper  and  open  part  of  Lauderdale,  as  Earlston  is  the 
metropolis  of  its  lower,  pent-in,  and  woody  portions. 
I  did  not  go  there  in  the  main  for  fishing,  as  the  month 
selected  may  perhaps  sufficiently  indicate,  but  I  did 
a  good  deal  incidentally,  and  in  one  way  and  another 
covered  most  of  the  water  which  has  moved  so  many 
generations  of  Border  fishermen  and  singers  to  con- 
vivial or  poetic  invocation.  This  alone  would  have 
interested  me  not  a  little,  and  as  those  three  weeks 
were  about  as  hopeless  from  a  fishing  point  of  view  as 
the  mind  of  angler  could  imagine,  it  was  just  as  well 
there  were  other  consolations  on  the  abounding  in- 
terests of  the  neighbourhood. 

For  centuries  the  Maitlands  and  the  Landers  were 


CLEAR  WATERS 

rivals  for  supremacy  in  the  dale.  It  is  nearly  two 
since  the  latter  succumbed  as  regards  Lauderdale,  and 
the  former  as  its  titular  earls  have  held  the  field  in  the 
great  old  rambling  mansion  of  Thirlestane  beside 
Lauder.  Here  in  a  mile  of  woody  policies  the  trout 
of  Leader  have  a  refuge  which  no  doubt  helps  to 
maintain  a  sufficient  stock  in  the  much  tormented 
reaches  of  the  river  above  and  below.  Yet  in  all  that 
glittering  east-windy  September  I  only  met  a  couple 
of  stray  fishermen  on  the  river  in  either  portion  !  I 
was  out  myself  seven  or  eight  days  or  parts  of  days 
with  poor  results,  which  last  was  the  fault  of  the 
weather,  not  of  the  river,  as  I  saw  quite  enough  to 
realise  that  there  were  plenty  of  trout  in  it.  I  ought 
to  have  had  a  decent  basket  one  day,  and  suffered  on 
that  occasion  some  partly  deserved  humiliation  at  the 
hands  of  one  of  the  above-mentioned  anglers. 

Wishful  to  explore  the  lower  portion  of  the  water, 
where  pent  in  between  the  steep  woody  heights  of 
Chapel  and  Ledgerwood  it  pursues  a  picturesquely 
fretting  course,  I  went  down  there  in  rather  lazy 
mood  as  regards  the  fishing  part  of  the  business.  As 
the  wind  was  blowing  briskly  down  stream,  the  other- 
wise poor  prospects  didn't  move  me  to  struggle  up 
against  it,  particularly  as  my  chief  object  was  to  get 
down  the  river  and  sample  it.  So  I  whipped  lazily 
downwards  with  such  very  moderate  prospects  as  the 
clear  low  water,  just  here  and  there,  held  out  to  so 
slack  a  procedure.  Rather  to  my  surprise  I  picked 
up  some  half-dozen  quite  sizeable  fish,  while  the  wood- 
land scenery  was  delightful  and  the  class  of  water  so 
alluring  as  to  make  me  long  to  fish  it  seriously,  when  a 
372 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

reasonable  supply  was  coming  down  and  the  wind  in 
another  quarter.  I  had  grown  so  accustomed  to 
having  the  river  to  myself  that  I  was  quite  startled, 
while  reeling  up  a  nice  third-of-a-pounder,  to  see  the 
point  of  a  rod  emerging  from  the  bushes  at  foot  of  the 
pool.  It  proved  to  be  one  of  the  long  wobbly  ones 
still  extant  on  Border  trout  streams.  Its  owner,  how- 
ever, who  was  soon  at  my  side,  was  unmistakably  a 
gentleman.  This  was  about  noon,  and  he  had  fourteen 
or  fifteen  very  nice  fish  in  his  basket.  As  an  habitue 
of  the  river,  though  quite  obviously  preserved  waters 
would  have  been  readily  accessible  to  him,  he  felt 
bound  to  say  something  consolatory  on  the  subject  of 
my  meagre  basket.  This  was  done  by  way  of  a  polite 
suggestion  that  fishing  up  stream  in  this  particular 
water  was  the  most  profitable  method,  the  '  particular 
water '  being  no  doubt  inserted  to  let  me  down  gently 
and  nicely,  since  it  was  perfectly  obvious  that  fishing 
down  stream  on  such  a  day  proclaimed  the  neophyte 
upon  the  housetop.  I  lamely  endeavoured  to  mitigate 
the  situation  by  explaining  my  rather  detached  motives ; 
but  as  the  fish  had  suddenly  taken  it  into  their  heads 
that  morning  to  rise  pretty  well,  this  was  not  so  easy. 
My  gentle,  but  I  am  sure  unconvinced,  critic  told  me 
that  on  a  good  day  in  April  or  May  he  always  looked 
for  eight  to  ten  pounds  weight  of  fish  in  this  water, 
and  furthermore  that  the  size  of  the  fish  had  increased 
of  late  on  the  Leader,  and  that  a  great  many  pounders 
and  over  had  been  killed  on  the  fly  in  the  course  of 
the  past  year. 

My  other  encounter  on  the  Leader  was  much  more 
entertaining.     The  day  was  rather  more  promising  of 

373 


CLEAR  WATERS 

aspect,  though,  as  it  proved,  deceptively  so,  and  about 
noon,  having  successfully  outwitted  a  half-pound  fish 
that  was  rising  in  an  overhung  pool  beneath  the  old 
Lauder  peel  tower  of  Whitslade,  I  espied  an  angler, 
in  this  case,  too,  indisputably  a  gentleman,  with  two 
attendants  coming  rapidly  up  stream  in  the  water. 
I  sat  down  and  waited  for  him  in  anticipation  of  those 
friendly  interchanges  of  current  experiences  and  such- 
like that  are  customary  on  the  river  bank.  He  was 
thrashing  away,  too,  at  a  great  rate  and  in  the  appar- 
ently careless  fashion  of  a  man  who  has  done  his 
serious  work  and  is  going  back  to  catch  a  train  or  trap, 
for  which  on  this  particular  day  there  seemed  ample 
reason.  *  What  is  the  matter  with  the  fish  ? '  he  called 
out  the  moment  he  got  within  speaking  distance. 

I  said  that  I  didn't  know,  but  that  I  had  been  out 
since  ten  and  had  only  half  a  dozen. 

*  I  have  been  out  since  eight,'  he  replied,  *  and  have 
only  seven.'  So  I  thought  we  were  going  to  have  a 
comfortable  chat,  particularly  as  I  was  a  stranger  and 
on  the  look  out  for  tips.  Not  a  bit  of  it.  This  en- 
thusiast went  down  into  the  water  again  just  above 
me  and  flogged  away  for  his  very  Hfe.  He  had  a  man 
on  the  bank  with  a  landing-net  as  well  as  another 
attendant,  who  proved  to  be  the  river  watcher,  for 
soon  after  he  caught  me  up  to  crave  a  sight  of  my 
ticket. 

*  Who  is  that  gentleman  ? '  I  inquired. 

'  Why,  yon 's  Maister  B ,'  replied  the  man  in 

a  tone  almost  of  reproof. 

*  And  who  is  Mr.  B ?     I  suppose  he  wants  to 

catch  the  two  o'clock  train  at  Lauder.' 

374 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

*  Maister  B !     I  thocht  ye  'd  hae  kent  who  he 

waur.     He  's  won  the  gold  medal  of  the club  in 

Edinborrie  twice  rinnin',  an'  if  he  wins  it  the  day  he 
keeps  it  for  his  ain.' 

*  He 's  not  running  for  the  train  then.'  The 
watcher  thought  this  a  great  joke,  though  it  wasn't 
intended  for  one,  and  laughed  quite  immoderately  for 
a  Berwickshire  man. 

*  Na  !  na  !  he  '11  nae  be  awa'  frae  the  river  afore 
nicht,  an'  he 's  the  only  member  on  the  Leader  too 
the  day.' 

*  Where  are  the  others  ? ' 

He  mentioned  several  other  streams  within  forty 
miles  of  Edinburgh,  over  which  they  were  presumably 
distributed.  After  another  half-hour,  inspired  by  the 
superhuman  energies  of  the  gold  medallist,  which 
proved  things  to  be  getting  worse  instead  of  better, 
I  reeled  up  and  went  home,  devoutly  thankful  I 
was  not  in  for  a  piscatorial  Derby  and  my  reputation 
committed  to  a  breathless  ten-hour  fight  against 
untoward  conditions. 

Next  day  in  Lauder  I  met  the  man  who  was  carry- 
ing the  landing-net  for  the  Edinburgh  champion,  and 
naturally  put  the  inevitable  query.  The  north-east 
wind  and  the  waning  glitter  of  the  day,  it  seems,  had 
defied  all  the  efforts  of  even  so  great  an  artist,  and  I 
learned  that  only  a  single  fish  was  the  reward  of  a 
whole  afternoon's  labour.  But  my  informant  turned 
out  to  be  the  local  champion,  and  according  to  his  own 
account  had  arranged  a  private  match  with  this  hero 
from  the  metropolis  to  which  he  looked  forward  him- 
self with  the  utmost  confidence.    He  told  me  he  had 

375 


CLEAR  WATERS 

killed  sixteen-pound  baskets  on  two  occasions  in  the 
preceding  June,  and  had  never  had  so  many  fish  of  over 
a  pound  in  all  his  experience  of  the  river  as  in  the  past 
season.  Truly  these  are  miraculous  streams !  The 
Leader,  to  be  sure,  has  some  advantage  over  the  other 
Tweed  tributaries,  as  none  of  the  salmon  tribe  run 
up  it. 

Lauder  is  the  most  old-fashioned  little  town  I  know 
in  Scotland.  With  its  one  long,  wide  street  it  is 
positively  picturesque,  an  adjective  one  may  well  be 
chary  of  applying  to  a  Scottish  country  town.  It  is, 
moreover,  fast  asleep,  which  sounds  a  still  hardier  form 
of  description  in  this  practical  and  generally  wide- 
awake country.  The  northward-bound  motors  in  a 
fairly  steady  stream  take  it,  as  it  were,  in  their  stride 
and  leave  it  quite  unmoved,  and  for  their  part  are 
probably  quite  oblivious  even  of  the  name  of  the 
place  they  cover  with  their  ceaseless  dust.  Doubtless 
there  is  a  speed  limit  through  the  town,  but  I  never 
saw  a  motor  show  any  sign  that  such  a  thing  existed. 
Nor  is  there  any  practical  reason  why  it  should,  as 
there  is  seldom  anything  in  the  street.  Till  lately 
Lauder  was  six  miles  from  a  railroad,  and  its  people 
did  a  flourishing  livery  business  in  driving  one  another 
to  the  Fountainhall  station  across  the  moors.  That  is 
now  scotched,  and  the  defunct  industry  is  still  fondly 
recalled  as  marking  a  prosperous  era  for  ever  gone. 
The  railway  killed  it,  the  railway  of  six  miles  which 
the  train,  cork-screwing  through  winding  moorland 
glens,  takes  forty  minutes  to  accomplish,  though  this 
includes  a  stoppage  or  two  in  which  the  guard  gets 
down  to  open  a  gate,  a  quite  precious  incident  I  never 
376 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

remember  to  have  encountered  in  any  other  railway 
journey.  In  spite  of  this,  however,  the  tradesmen 
complain  that  the  inhabitants  go  to  Edinburgh  for 
their  shopping!  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  you  could  buy 
many  things  in  Lauder.  In  pre-railroad  days  I  expect 
the  inhabitants  led  the  simple  life.  It  is  related  of 
one  of  the  earliest  female  passengers  by  rail  to  Edin- 
burgh that  on  beholding  the  sea  for  the  first  time,  at 
the  moment  foam-flecked  by  a  brisk  breeze,  she 
exclaimed, '  My  certie,  yon 's  a  bonnie  flock  o'  sheep  ! ' 
But  if  the  retail  trade  of  Lauder  is  sorely  harassed 
by  this  lightning  connection  twice  a  day  with  the 
main  line,  you  can  at  any  rate  buy  flies,  the  right  sort 
for  the  Leader,  of  course,  and  they  don't  hold  altogether 
with  the  simple  spider  patterns  of  the  Whiteadder. 
As  I  have  already  hinted,  the  Lauder  anglers  don't 
think  so  much  of  the  Whiteadder  ;  probably  they 
don't  often  fish  it,  or  know  much  about  it.  Every- 
body in  Lauder  has  lots  of  time  to  spare.  It  isn't  in 
the  least  like  other  Scottish  or  northern  townlets,  and 
most  of  the  natives  love  a  crack.  There  are  two 
respectable  little  hotels  and  other  harbourages  for 
visitors  from  the  outer  world.  A  few  score  of  such 
from  Edinburgh,  with  a  taste  for  the  simple  life  or 
for  angling,  repair  thither  in  the  holiday  season,  and 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  forgathering  with  patriotic 
and  reminiscent  natives.  A  more  delectable  spot  and 
a  more  delightful  neighbourhood  for  such  a  purpose 
would  be  hard  to  find  within  easy  reach.  There  are 
other  accessories  in  Lauder,  too,  besides  the  river  and 
the  old  peel  towers  and  the  many  prehistoric  camps 
that  crown  the  summits  of  the  overlooking  Lammer- 

377 


CLEAR  WATERS 

muir  hills.  For  every  morning  at  six  o'clock  or  there- 
abouts your  slumbers  may  be  abruptly  shattered  by  a 
horn  vigorously  blown  in  the  wide,  silent  street :  and 
if  you  look  out  of  your  window  you  will  see  twenty  or 
thirty  cows  hastening  from  back-yards  and  byres  to 
meet  the  town  herd  who  pilots  them  to  the  hills. 
At  sunset  you  will  see  them  returning,  ajid  to  the 
sound  of  the  same  civic  horn  scattering  to  their 
respective  milk-pails.  For  the  freemen  of  Lauder 
own  nearly  two  thousand  acres,  half  of  which  is  pasture 
and  half  excellent  tillage  land,  which  last  is  divided 
among  them  according  to  ancient  rites  far  too  intricate 
to  deal  with  here.  Lauder  is  only  a  townlet  of  some 
fifteen  hundred  souls,  but  it  is  a  great  thing  to  be  one 
of  its  hereditary  freemen,  the  privilege  being  appraised 
at  about  five  hundred  pounds,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
glory.  This,  no  doubt,  keeps  its  patriotic  folk  from 
fretting  that  they  are  not  as  other  bustling  places,  like 
Galashiels  for  instance,  just  across  the  hills,  or  even 
as  other  market  towns  like  Melrose,  Kelso,  Duns,  or 
Haddington.  It  tends,  no  doubt,  to  making  them 
historically  minded,  contented  with  their  quiet  lot, 
and  ready  to  crack  at  all  times  about  the  Earls  of 
Lauderdale  still  beneficently  reigning  over  them  and 
those  long  departed  ;  or  even  about  the  long  vanished 
Landers  whose  ruined  peel  towers  still  dot  the  dale. 
iEsthetically  it  is  just  the  place  for  the  contemplative 
angler,  and  I  have  made  no  mention  of  several  lusty 
burns  that  may  be  followed  into  the  heart  of  the  hills 
by  those  who  have  a  mind  for  such  rambles,  and  are 
content  with  small  deer  and  an  off-chance  of  something 
better.    You  mustn't,  of  course,  play  about  on  Sunday 

378 


WHITEADDER  AND  LAUDERDALE 

as  in  the  wicked  south,  and  in  the  still  worse  play- 
grounds of  the  denationalised  Highlands ;  for  this 
is  Scotland  proper,  real,  typical,  sturdy  old  Scotland, 
not  a  portion  of  the  Gaelic  fringe  leased  out  to  Eng- 
lishmen, Americans,  and  Israelites.  Practically  no 
southerner  or  alien  ever  treads  this  quiet  street  or 
throws  a  f^y  in  these  waters,  or  even  shoots  the  grouse 
upon  the  hills. 

If  you  go  to  church  on  Sunday,  at  the  Old  Parish 
Kirk  you  will  find  it  well  packed  with  men  as  well  as 
women,  who  as  vocalists  leave  nothing  in  the  way  of 
fervour  to  be  desired.  You  will  hear  an  admirable 
sermon,  too,  from  a  minister  who  is  not  only  a  theo- 
logian, but  as  a  naturalist  and  antiquarian  and  essayist 
has  illuminated  the  wild  heart  of  the  Lammermuirs 
to  the  great  delectation  of  Edinburgh  and  Scottish 
readers  generally.  As  you  are  borne  out  of  church 
with  the  full  flowing  tide  of  worshippers,  you  are  pretty 
sure  to  meet  the  other  tide  pouring  down  the  wide 
street  from  the  opposition  place  of  worship — that  of 
the  United  Free  Church.  This  is  the  moment  when 
Lauder  looks  really  animated  and  lively,  for  it  is  a 
thoroughly  church-going  place.  Moreover,  it  is  no 
longer  incumbent  upon  a  Scotsman  to  dissemble  his 
feelings  on  emerging  from  the  kirk.  He  may  now 
show  that  he  is  cheerful  and  happy,  and  freely  exercise 
those  social  instincts  that  for  no  occult  reason  seem 
common  to  aU  congregations  on  their  escape  into  the 
open  air. 

The  Lauder  burgesses  used  to  ride  their  bounds  on 
the  king's  birthday,  finish  up  with  a  horse-race  down 
the  street,  drink  the  king's  health  in  front  of  the 

379 


CLEAR  WATERS 

town  hall,  and  then  like  good  Scotsmen  toast  one 
another  till  the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  This 
ancient  usage  is  no  longer  associated  with  such  convivial 
ceremonies.  They  are  all  good  boys  here  now,  or 
nearly  all.  Even  the  toddy  ladles  and  the  rummers, 
within  easy  memory  in  daily  use  throughout  southern 
Scotland,  are  now  exhibited  in  glass  cases  as  family 
heirlooms,  and  gazed  at  by  a  generation  of  tea  drinkers 
as  mysterious  implements  used  by  their  ancestors  for 
some  purpose  or  purposes  unknown.  Of  the  quality 
of  stuff  that  steamed  habitually  in  these  stemm'd 
tumblers  the  younger  folk  in  their  moderate  lapses 
from  the  temperance  regime  cannot  even  guess. 
What  has  become  of  it  ?  After  forty  years  I  can  taste 
its  flavour  still.  Where  has  it  gone  ?  I  wonder  how 
Christopher  North  and  the  Ettrick  Shepherd  would 
feel  after  the  traditional '  ten  tumblers '  of  the  modern 
tavern  sample ! 


Printed  by  T.  and  A.  Constable,  Printers  to  His  Majesty 
at  the  Edioburgh  University  Press. 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 

Los  Angdes 
This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below. 


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